NINA SIMONE-NEWPORT 1970

Long overdue, but finally this year the remarkable Nina Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I  had the honor of seeing her in concert once in my life,  but that one time changed the way a young  music lover with an unsophisticated 17 year old musical palate listened to music .

OOH CHILD (NINA JUST MADE THINGS EASIER)Nina Simone
Newport Jazz Festival - July 11, 1970

In 1969, the organizers of the long running Newport Jazz Festival decided to change their usual format and sprinkle a few rock acts into what was  normally  a strictly jazz line-up. But by incorporating  bands like Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Sly and The Family Stone, and Ten Years After into the mix, they transformed the  normally  peaceful, calm weekend of mellow  jazz into… well, into a rock festival.

This resulted in a rock-festival-size crowd descending  upon a concert venue not equipped to handle a huge amount of people.With  it  came the standard storming of the gates and tearing down of fences,think Braveheart on hallucinogens,  turning it into a free concert for most of the people -- basically Woodstock without the bad acid, at least no bad-acid warning announcements from the stage.

Needless to say, when 1970 came  around, nary a rock act could be found anywhere in the vicinity of  Rhode Island, but a group of my friends and I decided to roll into Newport anyhow, piling into a rented U-Haul more suited for moving furniture than humans,  two people in the front and the rest of us piled into the windowless back like cargo. It was Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, east coast style, an old rented orange and gray  U-Haul replacing the brightly colored psychedelically  painted magic bus, minus the windows.

Unfortunately although the rock acts were gone, the atmosphere surrounding the concert grounds seemed anything but friendly. There had been reports of fights around what was called Festival Field, and early on Saturday, one of our group had a knife pulled on him.

Our vantage point from the hill overlooking the festival grounds did not exactly seem like a safe zone once the night session of the concert began, and for some reason my feeling was that most of the people around us on that hill were not exactly Herbie Mann fans. Jazz flautist Herbie was second on a three-act bill that also featured Nina Simone, whom I had never heard of in 1970, and  The Ike and Tina Turner revue to close the show.

Whether it was cannabis-fueled paranoia, or anxiety from the events of the day, I was not exactly a picture of serenity when Nina Simone hit the stage. I really just wanted to get back into the windowless U-Haul and head home. On the stage,a solitary figure sat down at the piano and in the next minute, this voice, a voice that I had never heard previously, resonated through the night and into my soul. It was deep and soulful in a way that I couldn't describe -- not a Motown Top 40 Diana Ross kind of a soul or even an Aretha Franklin kind of soul. This seemed different, mesmerizing, it's effect forced me to focus on what seemed from a distance the almost frail figure on stage and as she played, the perceived problems surrounding me melted away. Every note she sang rang so clearly through the quiet night, there was pain in her voice, but a serene calmness as well.There was a depth to this performance that went well beyond anything I had experienced musically at that point of my life.

All of the anxiety and fear were washed away , and somewhere  in the middle of the  set , Nina made sure the night was going to be all right. To this point, I had not recognized any of the songs, but now a few familiar notes from the piano and then Nina was telling me, in the words of a current very popular Top 40 hit, “ooh child, things are going to get easier, ooh child, things will be brighter.”

Amazingly Nina was singing “Ooh Child” by the Five Stairsteps -- such a dichotomy to hear Top 40 coming from that voice, yet the effect of recognizing the song, combined with Nina's transcendent voice, turned the lyrics of that song into a reality, and yes, for this night, even in the darkness, things were easier and things were so much brighter. I will forever be grateful to the amazing Nina Simone for that moment.

COME ON IN THE WATER'S FINE-Lake Street Dive, College Street Music Hall , New Haven, 5/9/18

There is a common thread that dominates most discussions about music among people of my generation, the central theme being, "today's music sucks". Although not without some evidence based merit, this is a mostly closed minded view, as if somehow the creative well dried up after 1980, and suddenly a whole generation of musicians  were incapable of playing instruments, singing melodies, and writing lyrics.
It's mostly a generational issue, my parents thought the Beatles sucked, I'm sure their parents thought that young girls in bobby socks swooning over "Frankie" was just a teenage fad and the bow tied crooner would never amount to much. Who knows maybe even Beethoven and Mozart fans were disgusted by the adulation heaped on Tchaikovsky 40 years later. "He's no Ludwig" was probably muttered at many a late 1800's dinner table.
While I will admit that it is sometimes difficult to sift through the musical  sludge to find the hidden gems, they do exist, as evidenced by the Boston based group who call themselves Lake Street Dive.
When dynamic lead singer Rachel Price strolled  onto the stage Wednesday night at the College Street Music Hall in New Haven and stood, almost defiantly in front of her band with her hands on her hips , it not only felt like something very special was about to happen, it also felt like she might have been saying "tie this to your whipping post" to any skeptical baby boomers sprinkled throughout the audience.
I happened to be one of those baby boomers in attendance but I wasn't skeptical. I had been a casual fan prior to the show based mostly on watching their creative covers of classic songs on You Tube.
I wasn't familiar with any of their original songs and certainly hadn't yet listened to any of the 10 tracks off  their week old album Free Yourself Up.
None of that mattered, the normal anticipation, the waiting for the familiar songs and big hits was not going to be part of the equation at this concert, and it didn't make a difference.The music coming from the stage was so infectious that there was never a moment when it felt like I was hearing these songs for the first time.



When watching Lake Street Drive(or as their cult like following of fans chant when the house lights go down..LSD) perform it's easy to get swept up  and carried away by lead singer Rachel Price. As stand up bassist  Bridget Kearney describes it, each song is a "vocal fireworks display" and it's an apt description. She is definitely the center of attention and it's her unique vocal style that drives  the band, but this is a group of talented artists whose music is the sum of all of their parts, it's not just  Rachel and the Lake Streeters.
 Mike(McDuck) Olson, guitar and trumpet, drummer Michael Calabrese and keyboard player Akie Bermiss, along with bassist Kearney are all essential elements to the tight knit music this band creates. and the background vocals of bassist Bridget and keyboardist Akie Bermiss are essential to it's sound.
It's difficult to put Lake Street into any specific musical genre, they seem to run the gamut from funk infused pop, to torch song  ballads, and even a touch of 60's girl group soul. Whatever the genre, Rachel's voice is able to slide comfortably into that pocket,her vocal style seems to meet somewhere at the intersection of Amy Winehouse and Ronnie Spector. Drummer Calabrese's assessment of the Lake Street sound is that they want their music to feel like The Beatles and Motown had a party together,  and that seems  just about right.
I had to do some post concert research to find out the names of the songs I considered highlights although the truth of the matter is, every single song was a highlight. As each song ended I couldn't wait for the next one to begin.
Ultimately the band only performed two cover songs, Shania Twain's Still the One reworked into a reggae infused soulful ballad , and the last song of the night, their own funky take on Hall and Oates Rich Girl. 

Although never an overtly political band, in interviews after the album was released Rachel admitted that events since November 2016 did influence much of the new material.They opened the show with a new song titled "Baby Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts" which focuses on the need for an emotional connection in a world gone crazy.


"An old man, an old man
has got his little hands on the button
feels like nothing anyone can do
people out there , cracking up cracking up
and I'm just trying to keep it together
notice that I feel better when I'm holding you"


They closed the first portion of the show with a song titled "Shame, Shame, Shame" another poke at the small handed occupant of The White House, prefacing the tune by announcing the presence of a group in the lobby of the theater who were there to register people to vote.



But mainly this show was all about the music, because that's what Lake Street Dive is, and as I write this now three days after the show, the music I witnessed that night is still resonating.The first encore, the title track from their 2014 album  What I'm Doing Here, showcased everything that makes Rachel Price one of the most captivating singers I have ever seen. Accompanied by only soft  piano, Rachel's remarkable voice echoed and resonated into every corner of the theater, crystal clear and note perfect, the emotional weight of the lyrics and her vocal making every nerve ending in my body tingle. At that moment it was clear that any discussion about the demise of current music was moot, it is alive and thriving and living  in a dive on Lake Street.

MISTER SOFTEE SAVES THE DAY

My final entry into the "10 albums in 10 days" thread will be in the form of a short story, coinciding with my "guilty little pleasure" choice, possibly as a way of explanation.
On the last weekend of July, 1970, the Powder Ridge Ski resort had decided they wanted to emulate the scene that took place the previous summer on Max Yasgur's farm in usptate New York and stage their own version of Woodstock.
The line up of musicians scheduled to perform, while not quite as extensive as Woodstock, was nonetheless impressive, pretty much a who's who of popular bands from that era:

• Day 1: Eric Burdon & War, Sly and the Family Stone, Delaney & Bonnie, Fleetwood Mac, Melanie, Mountain, J.F. Murphy and Free Flowing Salt, Allan Nichols, James Taylor
• Day 2: Joe Cocker, Allman Brothers, Cactus, Little Richard, Van Morrison, Rhinoceros, Ten Wheel Drive, Jethro Tull, Tony Williams Lifetime, Zephyr
• Day 3: Janis Joplin, Chuck Berry, Bloodrock, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Grand Funk Railroad, Richie Havens, John B. Sebastian, Spirit, Ten Years After

Unfortunately, the Middlefield townsfolk were not going to be quite as  amenable to the notion of having long hair, drug crazed hippie freaks marauding across their lawns, and more importantly to this community, through their apple orchards. I'm sure the Lyman Orchards owners heavily influenced  the decision to have the event  cancelled just days before it was supposed to begin.

Side note- I have first hand experience that the task of finding your way out of those orchards  while lysergically enhanced, is nearly impossible. Everything looks exactly the same, I'm not sure how long I wandered aimlessly  through the MacIntosh maze, but eventually I started to contemplate how many green apples per day I would have to consume in order  to stay alive.

Well the event may have been cancelled but the refugee like trek of rock fans from all over the country had already begun, so despite the lack of music, 30,000 people still showed up at Powder Ridge, and with no form of entertainment available other than radio and tape players, turned the event into a 3 day drug crazed zombie apocalypse.

Only one of the scheduled artists decided to  show up, folksinger Melanie.She waded right into the middle of the madness, plugged her microphone and amp into the outlets of a Mister Softee truck, and thoroughly entertained the crowd that had gathered around her. I was already a fan of Melanie based on  her Woodstock inspired hit "Lay Down(Candles in the Rain) from the previous year, but now I was transformed into a rabid fan, and for the next 5 years, my girlfriend and I followed her all over the New England, even attempting an ill fated trip to New Jersey in a Nor'easter to see her. That didn't work out quite so well.

So anyhow, it seems like a guilty little pleasure only because no one else I knew liked Melanie, Barbara and I were  out there alone and stranded on Melanie Island. 

In retrospect, Melanie's unusual vocal style is now  somewhat the norm for many of the indie type female singer/songwriters of today such as Regina Spektor and Ingrid Michaelson.

So my guilty little pleasure is Melanie Safka, but instead of being guilty, I just like to think of it as being ahead of my time.