The Price Of Procrastination

Originally posted April 15, 2009

I’m one of those folks with a tendency to put off unpleasant tasks. That means that, in the years prior to the Texas Gal’s arrival, April 15 would find me scrambling about to file my tax returns.

I’d generally prepare my returns the evening before, having delayed as long as I could. And the day of the 15th would find me spending my breaks and my lunch hour making photocopies of my returns and forms and getting all of those into the appropriate envelopes. And then I’d drop the envelopes off at the nearest post office on my way home from work.

I imagine that with some effort, I could have been a lot more organized and life would have been a lot less stressful during the middle of April. I tried, year after year. But I never seemed to be able to pull it together. I’d get my forms and everything assembled in January and let the papers sit in a pile on my desk at home until I could put the tasks off no longer.

The Texas Gal, thankfully, has a different approach, and that, of course, has changed things for me. We generally pull our tax information together during the first week of January each year, and I would guess that since 2002, we’ve filed our returns no later than January 7. As a result, I no longer dread the approach of April 15. And as I watch the folks on the news reports line up at the post office late this evening, I will know that there, but for the Texas Gal, would wait I.

A Six-Pack for April 15
“Before It’s Too Late” by Joe South from Don’t It Make You Wanna Go Home? [1969]
“Let the Dollar Circulate” by Billy Paul from When Love Is New [1975]
“Pay To The Piper” by the Chairmen of the Board, Invictus 9081 [1970]
“Taxed To The Max” by Tower of Power from Souled Out [1995]
“Poor Man’s Plea” by Buddy Guy & Junior Wells from Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues [1972]
“Taxman” by Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings from Songs From The Material World: A Tribute To George Harrison [2002]

Some of these have no connection with the travails of the day except for their titles. The Joe South tune, for example, is one of those “Let’s get together” anthems that were prevalent in the late 1960s, and it happens to sound pretty good, even if its lyrics are a bit simple. The Buddy Guy/Junior Wells tune is a great piece of honking blues, and the Tower of Power track is – typically – a hot piece of horn-heavy R&B.

I’m not sure how I came across the Billy Paul tune. I must have found a rip of When Love Is New and then deleted most of it, because this the only track I have from the album. And from what I can tell, the track wasn’t released as a single at the time. One source I consulted showed that the Paul track was released on a single with a track by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, but I think that was a later release. (If anyone knows differently, let me know, please.)

“Pay To The Piper” was, however, released as a single, and went to No. 13 around the time 1970 turned into 1971.

I wondered if I should post the original “Taxman” from Revolver, but I decided that it’s so well known – and so available – that there was no point. The Bill Wyman version is pretty good.

A Baker’s Dozen Of Roads

Originally posted June 18, 2008

Although music has always been a part of my life, I’ve not always been very active in finding the music I liked; I let it come to me. I listened to the radio, to the jukeboxes at places that had them, and occasionally went out and bought a record or two. With the exception of the Beatles – whose entire Capitol/Apple catalog I had before I turned nineteen – I made no attempt for many years to focus on any one performer or group. I bought a few records here and there, but not many, as I wandered from my college days into the first years of adulthood.

That changed in 1987, when I spent time with a woman whose love of music equaled mine. We spent many hours of our brief time together in record stores and listening to music new and old in our apartments in St. Cloud. I moved to Minot to teach in the late summer of 1987, hopeful in all ways and renewed in my love of music. As a result, there are a few albums that I bought during my first year in Minot that, for me, carry in their grooves that sense of hope. That hope did not survive into the next summer, but I still love those albums despite that and even though they may not be the best work of the artists or groups involved.

Four of those albums that come most immediately to mind are Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love, Fleetwood Mac’s Tango In The Night, Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Memphis Record by Elvis Presley. The first three of those were new albums, and I enjoy them still; the best of them is likely the Springsteen. The Presley album – a two-record set – collects the studio work he did in Memphis in 1969, much of it released that year on From Elvis in Memphis. Some of it was released on the awkwardly titled From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis and two tracks, I believe, were released as non-album singles.

For someone who paid little attention to Elvis while he was alive, The Memphis Record was a revelation. This was not the bloated Elvis who’d been the butt of too many unfunny jokes during his last years. The photos on the ornate double record jacket – made to look like a newspaper – confirmed that, but all one had to do was listen to the music to hear a lean, hungry and talented performer trying his best – with success – to make himself relevant again. Looking back, I recalled that I’d always liked the singles from those sessions – “Suspicious Minds,” “Kentucky Rain” and “In The Ghetto” – but I’d never thought much about them. So here I was, almost twenty years later, realizing that those singles were the tip of a musical iceberg that was larger and better than I’d thought possible.

I listened to all four sides of the record frequently that first autumn in Minot and came to love the music. One song – new to me – stood out, though. I’m not at all sure why, but Elvis’ version of “True Love Travels On a Gravel Road” is to me one of the best things he ever recorded, and it remains one of my favorite tracks ever. So I’m going to use it as the starting point today.

A Baker’s Dozen of Roads
“True Love Travels On a Gravel Road” by Elvis Presley from From Elvis In Memphis, 1969

“The Long and Winding Road” by Richie Havens from Sings Beatles And Dylan, 1987

“Eternity Road” by the Moody Blues from To Our Children’s Children’s Children, 1969

“Seven Roads (Second Version)” by Fanny, from the sessions for Fanny, 1970

“The Road Shines Bright” by John Stewart from The Lonesome Picker Rides Again, 1971

“Rocky Road” by Peter, Paul & Mary from In The Wind, 1963

“Dark Road” by Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee from Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Sing, 1958

“Roadhouse Blues” by the Doors from Morrison Hotel, 1970

“On the Road” by Michael Johnson from There Is A Breeze, 1973

“The Road to Cairo” by David Ackles from David Ackles, 1968

“Tobacco Road” by Bill Wyman & The Rhythm Kings from Struttin’ Our Stuff, 1998

“Six Days On The Road” by Taj Mahal from Giant Step, 1969

“Too Many Roads” by Carolyn Franklin from If You Want Me, 1976

A few notes:

I chuckled when – one day after sharing my negative assessment of the Beatles’ version of “The Long And Winding Road” – Richie Havens’ version of the song popped up. Even from Havens, one of my favorites, it’s only just okay. I’m coming to the conclusion – long overdue, no doubt – that it’s the song I don’t care for, not necessarily the singer. The album that the track comes from – Sings Beatles and Dylan – is nevertheless a good one, well worth finding.

I tend to think that one either loves the Moody Blues or detests them. I like them, even as I acknowledge that their hippie philosophy – which could induce eye rolls even forty years ago – is sometimes a bit much. But I do like their sound, and it’s only when the MB’s get into thoughts truly too heavy to carry – as in “Om” from In Search of the Lost Chord – that I begin to roll my own eyes. To Our Children’s Children’s Children is one of the group’s better albums musically and lyrically.

The version of Fanny’s “Seven Roads” that popped up here is an alternate take, a little bit shorter and a little bit tougher than the version that closed the group’s self-titled first album. Fanny didn’t hang around long – the all-woman group recorded five albums between 1970 and 1974 – but what the group left behind is pretty good. A limited edition box set – First Time in a Long Time: The Reprise Recordings – came out in 2002 and covers everything except the group’s final album, which came out on Casablanca. If you can find it – the box set is available online for prices starting around $70 – it would most likely be all the Fanny you would need.

“Dark Road” is a typical track from a typical album by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. There’s nothing fancy about it, just the two of them, guitar and blues harp (and a little bit of help from drummer Gene Moore). But it’s folk blues about as good – and authentic – as you can get them, recorded before the blues revival of the 1960s.

I don’t know much about David Ackles – I need to do some digging – but I’ve heard a few things and I like them. “The Road to Cairo” is a haunting song and record.

Carolyn Franklin was, of course, Aretha’s sister – she crossed over in 1988 – and If You Want Me was the last of five albums she released on RCA. From what I can tell, only her first album, 1969’s Baby Dynamite, has ever been released on CD. If You Want Me is the only one I have, and it’s pretty good.

(I should note that The Memphis Record is out of print but available if you dig online. The CD release of From Elvis In Memphis has some bonus tracks to go along with the original album. Both have been supplanted by a 1999 release called Suspicious Minds, a two-disc set that has – I believe – everything Elvis released from those 1969 sessions in Memphis as well as a good number of alternate takes and bonus tracks. It’s a good one.)