The Other Side(s) Of Being Born In The USA...And Making Music There

It has become almost apocryphal to say that for every album Bruce Springsteen released, there is at least one he didn't, but since the man has opened the gates to his vault over the last decade (and, ahem, the gates to his other vault), it's becoming more and more evident, how true this is, now that people don't have to exclusively piece things together from bootlegs anymore. In the cas eof the run-up to Born In The USA, Bruce had material for about six albums, that he then pruned down and selected and reselected until coming up with the twelve-song track list - including famous late arrival for hit single purposes "Dancing In The Dark". A ton of the other tracks went back in or stayed in the vaults, though Bruce churned out a handful of possible contenders as b-sides. 

Now, not all of this material is top notch - how could it be? - but overall there are a number of very strong songs that didn't get their due in time, and coud have been hits if Springsteen had issued them with an eye on the charts. I'm mainly thinking of "My Love Will Not Let You Down", finally issued on Tracks fourteen years later, which sounds much more like a hit single than half of the tracks of Born In The USA that did become top ten hits. With Born In The USa you can easily argue that momentum in pop and rock music is real, because at any other time, I don't think a so-so song like "I'm Going Down" would have come anywhere near the top of the charts if it hadn't come from the unstoppabe blockbuster that was Born In The USA.

But back to some of those songs. What if Bruce had kept some of the unused, but high quality stuff that didn't make the cut, and quickly thrown out a follow-up album in late 1985 or early 1986? (In real life he didn't need to, because Born In The USA was still throwing off singles in November 1985, more than a year and a half after the album had been released, following the trailblazing of Michael Jackson's Thriller) That album could've been Rockaway The Days, our One Buck Record of the day, slily presented with a cover that would remind people of its prdecessor - as if here was a need at the time to do so. I have already documented some of Bruce's best demo work with Don't Back Down last year, so this focuses on the finished tracks. I was rather brutal in my selection, dropping two numbers at the last second to make Rockaway The Days a vinyl-appropriate nine-track 40-minute affair. All killer, no filler, or pretty much.  

"Frankie", a lengthy track that oes back to Bruce's love of Van Morrison was a concert classic in 1976, the dropped from the line-up of Darkness On The Edge Of Town for Bruce's harder-edged material. He and the E-streeters gave it another try in 1982, but with the pop-rock sheen of Born In The USA and its eye on concise songs, "Frankie" again got the boot. And in some ways, it is clarly a song from a different era that Bruce that he had left behind, but as a nice throwback to romantic mid-70s Bruce it's a really nice piece that deserves its place in the sun. Another temporarily lost classic, "This Hard Land" figured on early track lists of Born In The USA as its last track, before Bruce inexplicably discarded it, only to resurrect it as a a re-recording for his Greatest Hits album. Fittingly, maybe, it's now the closing track of Rockaway The Days. 

Rockaway The Days collects some of Bruce's finest, if unassuming, pop moments from the era like "Man At The Top" with a very vague country influence, the raucous "Lion's Den" originally recorded during a session for Gary U.S. Bonds (and having its horns anachronistically added in 1998 for Tracks, but we'll turn a blind eye on that, exceptionally). and "Janey Don't You Lose Heart", which like "Man At The Top" was brought out as a b-side. "Janey" also has the first recorded vocals of Nils Lofgren on a Springsteen track, who overdubbed his harmonies on the original 1983 version. 

"Protection", used here as a kick-ass opener for what would have been side b, isn't a finished studio track, but the still very shiny demo Bruce recorded and then gave to Donna Summer. He originally wrote another song for her, which arguably fit her style better, but Jon Landau more or less forbid Bruce to give it away. That song was "Cover Me", a song that I personaly never felt was particularly great, but it bacame a huge hit as Born In The USA's second single, so maybe Landau knows a thing or two more about what the record-buying public likes. 

Rockaway The Days - nine top song from mid-80s Bruce, some of which arguably are better than the weake numbers on Born In The USA. Either way, a very fine companion to the big blockbuster that came before it. 

 

Requiem For An Unknown Singer-Songwriter, or: News From The Slop Shop

Farewell, dear Jared, we hardly knew you. Come to think of it, we didn't know you at all, and you wanted it this way. But now that you have seemingly shuffled off your (im)mortal (digital) coil and have gone into the great beyond of other cyberegions, we salute you for...uh...your infatiguable work ethic, your high work standards and your sophisticated artistry of sounding like a couple of different people all at once. Rest In Power, Jared, no matter where that power comes from. New server rooms, maybe. 

Hey, you guys remember Jared Hutcherson, right? To some, he's the country-singer/songwriter that created dozens of albums as if it was nothing. To others he was the name of one of the most shameless A.I. slop generating programmer imaginable, pointing out modern country radio's hollowness by churning out hours and hours of inoffensive, bland country-pop pap that would go unnoticed among real artists on country radio. And now he's gone. I'm not saying my little article calling out 'Mr. Hutcherson' had something to do with that, though I'm not saying it didn't, either. Who knows how Youtube got wise to the systematic shenanigans behind our beloved Jared, or whether the people behind Jared took the money and ran, while they still could. 

Jared getting deep-sixed by his creators

If you remember, 'Jared' was notoriously productive, as A.I. slop machines tend to be, churning out albums, and long albums at that, contrary to real artists, whoe albums get shorter and shorter, due to the Tik Tok-isation of the younger generations of music listeners. And now his thirty albums are seemingly gone from all music streaming services, having also quit Apple, Amazon and the rest of the bunch. Jared you are gone, but not forgotten. 

Music recommendations straight from the slop shop are of course continuing. a couple of weeks ago, together with some albums from the early 70s that go well with my All Pearls, No Swine project, Youtube proposed me a band called The Rash Cooper. I liked two of their songs, though they didn't sound much alike, and wanted to find out more about the band. a Google research yielded absolutely nothing besides that album: no web presence, social media, even a mention on a website somewhere. If an abum with non-descriptive artwork is the absolute only thing a 'musical artist' has out there, there's a pretty much 100% probability it's A.I. So, I kept a tab on these guys, and guess what. Almost exactly a month after the first one, the second album of the 'band' dropped, again with nothing but the album and its obviously A.I.-generated cover to show for it. Goodbye, The Rash Cooper, you sloppy A.I. slop. 

This is what you get when you let A.I. (no emphasis on the I.) write its own epitaph

The stories of A.I.-generated slops and sloppy fakes are becoming legion and getting worse - music streming platforms now have to delete thousands if fake songs every day - and that is, when they're trying, which considering their business model they don't have a real incentive to. But they really should, as the scammers have upped their game, now skimming both sides of the aisle. As seen in the article I linked to, A.I. now steals or 'creates' fake tracks by fake artists, which then get streamed thousands of times by A.I. bots on a loop, allowing the scammer to goose the streaming numbers for a half-way decent payout. It's not much money per se, a low four digit figure, but it's like phishing mails. You repeat this often enough on a small scale involving small local bands to rip off, and you got yourself a salary. The loss, however, is on the scammed artists, not the streamers, so it'll probably take some turns for the worse, before the wave of A.I. slop & scam music really gets monitored and persecuted as it should. 

No such stuff here on One Buck Records, pbviously, though nowadays I have to be careful as hell as well when sourcing the All Pearls, No Swine and Bluegrass Chartbusters series. So far, no A.I. has made it past ol' OGB's quality control, but the enemy is getting stronger and better. Still, all human-made music right here, of which there is more coming up very soon, same as it ever was. 

Like a ghost rider in the sky, Jared will return someday...on a burning horse!

Allez, Enfants De La Patrie De Tous Des Perles Et Aucun Cochon!

Bonjour chers amis de la France, pays des mangeurs des grénouilles et d'escargots et des fromage un moitié pouris...it is the national holiday here in France and this morning followed with a quarter eye the big-ass military parade through parisian Boulevards that the wife and kids watched on TV. The real national celebration will of course hopefully happen tonight, when the French national team beats Spain in the Football World Cup semifinal. I'm not the biggest fan of the squad, though family loyalty means I have to be rooting pour les bleus, but I certainly don't want to see the sneaky Spaniards squeek into the finals. I have yet to be impressed by that squad, other than the individual brillance of Lamine Yamal, who is as good as advertised, and see them underwhelmingly make round after round...the worst of course would be to have Spain meet Argentina, who have also squeeked through in even less impressive ways. They have basically played every game a little worse than the preceding one, yet somehow are two games away for the title. I might even have to swallow my usual discontent for the Brits - more aimed at their asshole fans than the team itself, they are the absolute dirt worst - and root for those guys to go to the title match. 

Wait a minute, you say, did I go to the right place? Since when has One Buck Records turned into a sports blog. It hasn't, of course, but I feel like chatting about this and that, because, well, this newest installment of All Pearl, No Swine has me with little to say. after having done forty of these suckers, you run out of useful things to say -  you know what these are and how they work. I could annotate some of the artists, but that would be relatively random, and if one of these songs makes you want to investigate the guilty party, you can hop on Google or Discogs and find out more for yourself. So I'll just talk a bit about why I compiled this volume as I did and then I'll be out of your hair and, uh, let the music do the talking...

You will find that there's little of the usual folk and country rock on this album - since I was compiling in the moment, I was in the mood for something a little funky, even in its mid-tempo songs, so this is a volume of All Pearls, No Swine that moves a lot more than some of its mellower siblings. For variety purposes we do get a belated return appearance of fey folkie James McCarthy - it's ok, James, no need to declare that you are "Born A Loser" - and of soft acoutic duo Joe And Bing (cf. the two sensitive gentelemen above). And since Bonnie Tyler just died a couple of days ago I thought it would be neat to have something from her on here as well, so I put "Hey Love (It's A Feeling)" on here. 

So, what else is going on around here? A bunch of midtempo groovers from folks like Redeye, Shawn Harris, Riverson, Carmen, and others. There's also a bit of a psychedelic bent to some of the songs here, whether ir's Dory Previn's ballad "The Game", Creme Soda's "Tonight" or Major Arcana's "Wsteren Wind". And did I mention crunchy guitars? Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have crunchy guitars. Power-poppers Bram Tchaikowski set the tone with the opener "Lullaby On Broadway", we get the punk-ish "You're The Disease" from The Outcasts, Luke & The Apostles' gospel-ish "You Make Me High" gets high on electric guitars, and finally Kiwi prog rockers Ragnarok - having previously been compiled here on One Buck Records, and pictured below - show their roots as a bar band playing covers by bringing out a super-heavy version of Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" that brings things to an end in suitably thunderous fashion.

So, twenty underappreciated quality tracks from the 70s. You know what to do. 

 

The Return Of The Ozarker

 

When last we saw Israel Nash - and that was a while ago - he was wearing unkempt hair and a long cowboy poncho, having seemingly stepped right out of Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s. The music he brought with him was also of that exact time and place - Israel Nash's Rain Plans sounded like a long-lost Neil Young record, which of course meant that together with my reworked Harvest of Uncle Neil Rain Plans became the most popular item on this blog, and - if the three popular items on the bottom of the front page tell true - still is, at least in terms of page views. Rightfully so, 'cause it's a great album, but Israel Nash is not one to sit still and dwell in what's done. His earlier album Barn Doors And Concrete Floors - whivh I picked up after Rain Plans - sounds a lot more of its time, reminding you of Son Volt and the whole No Depression scene of the 90s that it was influenced by. 

But Ozarker is something else entirely, once again. Eagle-eyed and even half-blind visitors have seen that Israel Nash's return is tagged with the Born In The USA Appreciation Month tag, and there's a reason for that. Namely, that Ozarker sounds not much like Rain Plans, but it does have distant echo of - you guessed it - Bruce's mega album of the 80s. Ozarker, despite the gaudy album cover which makes you think that Nash has gone full glam, is his version of a heartland record, and, notably, a heartland record recorded in the mid-80s. You can think John Mellencamp or maybe Tom Petty, but good ol' Bruce should definitely cross your mind when you listen to this. It definitely crossed Nash's when he recorded this. 

I have a theory concerning musicians of roughly my generation and slightly older. They all listened to bits and bops - if not the entire thing, of Born In The USA when they were kids, mainly because that record with its seven top ten hits was so inescapble at the time. After, when these boys grew into rock'n'rollers and and country rockers and such, they left all embarrasing memories of ever having liked "Born In The USA" or danced around to "Dancing In The Dark" behind, and focused on their more srious endeavors. But hidden deep in the lizard part of their brain is an abiding love for Born In The USA, and even its - shall we say divisive - audioscape. And that love will out, sooner or later. 

Ozarker is, as the title indicates, a return to the roots. Israel Nash spent most of his life in Texas, but was born in Aurora, Missouri, and spent his childhood there. The album is, in many ways, a reflection on his growing up, the family and its roots - the title song chronicles the love story of his grandparents - and, obviously, the music that he listened to when he grew up. And if you grew up in Missouri in the early 80s, you definitely heard some heartland rock. Gripka has mentioned that he listened to two albums in the run-up to Ozarker, Tom Petty's Damn The Torpedoes and, yup, Bruce's Born In The USA. Nash even writes his own, updated  version of "Born In The USA", chronicling the return of veteran's in "Lost In America". The jungles of Vietnam have been replaced by Middle East deserts, but the sentiment of being, well, lost and sold out, and full of regrets, are the same: "It was God and country, cash in hand / for a one-way ticket off to them far east blowing desert sands / I won't forgive and I can't forget / All that I saw an those thigs that I did". Another long-gone daddy in the U.S.A, now... 

Listen to opener "Can't Stop": Once you get past the moody, synth-backed opening and the chorus kicks in, you'd think this is a Tom Petty outtake. As in, a really good Tom Petty outtake. "Roman Candle" fleetingly makes youthink of another heartland rocker, good ol' Bob Seger. But let's be very clear: These aren't Ryan Adams-style pastiches of things he likes, these are Nash's songs cast in the shadow of those heratland rockers you would hear in a small town in the Ozarks in the early and mid-80s. There's even some 'Sha-La-la's' on the title song that seem to be imported directly from Bruce's record, and "Pieces" sound like it could have been written as such by the man himself. Considering the records that inspired this, Ozarker's sound is slightly synthetic and huge, as it should be. You go mid-80s heartland rock, go fuckin' hard and really freakin' big. 

Ozarker is a fantastic album, if you like Petty, if you like Springsteen, or if you just like damn good rock music with an honest country heart. A concise ten track, 45 minute set of wonderful country-tinged heartland rock, that shows again why Mr. Nash is an underrated American treasure. 

My Bonnie Is Over The Ocean...

 ...well, so to speak. You know, that big-ass dark unknowable ocean that we all have to cross someday. Well, today was Bonnie's day. Gloria Gaynor a.k.a. Bonnie Tyler died yesterday. I knew she had been sick, and had just come out of a medially induced coma last week or so, so I figured she was doing a little better, but, uh, nope...another one of the old crew gone. And Bonnie Tyler was definitely someone I heard a ton on the radio when I was young. By that time, she was already - like her sister in roaring vocals, Tina Turner - in her MOR/AOR phase, which made her a perfect fit for my parents' preferred radio station, fitting in neatly amongst your Elton John and Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams. Her biggest smash, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" was still played all over the radio, as were the old classics "It's A Heartache" and "Lost In France" and her frecent work  also got some air waves. 

Now, unlike for Tina - for whose comp I did serve up a number of MOR/AOR classics - I had compiled a pretty neat compilation of Tyler's early years, before the frivolous hairspray and equally frivolous production took over. There's no shame in liking that Bonnie Tyler - and I really do - but her early, grittier, earthier work deserves another look from a lot of people put off by the puffy hair, the cocaine-addled videos and the really mainstreamy production of the 80s. 

That's why you should check out Really Cool Antiques, if you didn't at the time. 20 early tracks before folks like Jim Steinman and *shudder* Dieter Bohlen got their hands on her. The two early classics, plus gritty takes on classics like "Living In The City", there's lots of stuff to like in here and remember our sweet Bonnie over the ocean... 

R.I.P. Gaynor "Bonnie Tyler" Hopkins

1961 - 2026

I Feel Like Ol' Michael Corleone And Here's Why...

 

"Just when I thought I was out - they pull me back in". 

Yup. I do feel like Michael Corleone being dragged back into the mafia life. Except here the Cosa Nostra is them Bluegrass Chartbusters. I mentioned in my write-ups that this series is in constant revision. I also said that with this ever-expanding series I was done setting somewhat artificial limits, but admit that secretly, I did. I thought I'd wrap up the series in 25 volumes, but had too much overflow at about 27 voumes and then said to myself 'there's no way we're gonna go beyond 30'. Thirty seemed like a total resonable number to go with, I figures if I come across three or four stragglers, I'll swap them in for a couple of numbers on the last volumes et voilà, my work is done. 

And then reader Kyra Dean pointed out in a comment on the last volume of the Bluegrass Chartbusters that two all-female bluegrass bands, The Fly Birds and Della mae, would possibly make fine additions to this series. Damn you Kyra ! Thank you Kyra! These are indeed excellent bands and they also have some very sweet cover versions, especially The Fly Birds. So both bands will obviously become regular contributors to this series, starting with their lovely cover of James Taylor's lovely "Sweet Baby James". 

But, of course there is not only enough overflow tracks now to go past thirty, this discovery brought out the hunter and gatherer in me once more. I don't know what it is especially about this series, but I'm like a freakin' shark having smelt a tinsel of blood in the water, now scoring the internet and the Youtube once more for cool bluegrass cover of popular rock and pop tunes. Happily I have found another batch of songs and bands /artists I missed the first time around, but of course this means that I have to rework the next, oh, twenty volumes of this series. Just when I thought I was out...

The tons of volues still to come also explains the relatively quick turnaround between volumes this time. And need I specifically point out that volume eleven has another excellent line-up of artists and songs lined up? I don't, but I will anyway! As the last volume before the re-make/re-model work begins, this one is still very much in the old school 'mostly CMH/Pickin On... artists with a growing number of other artists mixed in' mold. Pickin On...'s most popular band Iron Horse have a whooping four numbers here, including their epic take on "American Pie" as a run-out groove. The Sidekicks cover Jimmy Buffet for the firt time with "Son Of A Son Of A Sailor". Brad Davis makes us forget about Huey Lewis, or almost, with his take on "The Power Of Love". Cornbread Red are back with "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Sweet Emotion". 

As for the relative newcomers, Love Canon are back with great takes on "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and "Danger Zone", The Infamous Stringdusters have an off-the-cuff version of The Killers' "When You Were Young" and Bourbon Revival cover another song ready-made for Bluegrass, Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide". Greensky Bluegrass, not in action since volume 8, check back in with a take on Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece". And as for real newcomers, in a one-off we welcome Theo & Brenna and their wonderful take on The Ronettes' classic "Be My Baby".

As you can gather, another 20 song program full of great tunes, well-played and sung with the quality stamp approval of your truly. Have a quality hoedown with these, same as it ever was. 

Gene + A Bunch Of Djangos = A Very Good Time

It's been an unconsciously long time that I posted something from Gene Clark, and this will not stand. So I'll post my favorite bootleg of Geno, backed by the Django Band, a short-lived troupe that came out of Gene's long-running 'Tribute To The Byrds' road band. As a matter of fact, outside of this bootleg I have never heard of the band being called The Django Band, but I'll trust the taper on them being dubbed as such. Whatever their name, they were a sympathetic backing band for Geno, led by Michael Curtis of the short-lived Curtis Brothers Band that I have previously featured here, and guitar slinger Billy Darnell who by this time was a four-year veteran of Clark's backing band duty. The line-up is completed by Greg Thomas on drums, and was essentially a mash-up of two different, equally dubious Byrds tribute bands, with Curtis comng over from Michael Clarke's Tribute To The Byrds (and then, his fake Byrds). 

So he has a very fine backing band which does make a difference. While solo acoustic Gene, and sometimes band-backed Gene, would slow down allsongs to dirge-like tempo, here The Django Band prevents that from happening and Gene, who seems to be in especially good humour - alcohol-related or not - hs a blast with these guys, who bring the groove. Like, literally, during a section of "Mr. Tambourine Man", where the classic melody and rhythm are upended by a short groove riffing part. They give a bit of a Calypso feel to "She Darked The Sun" and play "Set You Free This Time" as f it were an old soul song. Several of Gene's old warhorse sound a bit different than thier usual presentation, which obviously freshens them up a bit.

The other thing I love about this boot is the set list, covering a ton of classics - including an abundance of Byrds songs that betray the group's origins as a Byrds tribute band -  but also songs that at this time were rarely playd, "Backstage Pass" and "She Darked The Sun" for example. There is a rare live showing of "Shades Of Blue" that he only ever recorded as a demo. Actually the first set opens with a very nice surprise. As he often would, Clark opens with a short acoustic segment, but here "Here Without You" and "For A Spanish Guitar" are augmented by a mandolin, played by Curtis. And Curtis gets a solo lead vocal showcase in that first set to sing "Southern Cross", a track familiar for longstanding One Buck Heads from that aforementioned Curtis Brothers comp. 

The Django Band also gets busy during the intermission between Gene's two sets, playing a couple of Curtis tunes (including the classic, Fleetwood-Mac covered "Blue Letter") and a cover of "Iko Iko"sung by Billy Darnell, while Gene is away, presumably at the bar, before he joins them for another run through classic Byrds and solo tunes, including a reworked version of "Gypsy Rider" that Curtis would then later cover on a solo album. 

The sound of the boot is pretty good, vocals are slightly distant, but nothing too distracting. I did a bit of work to improve the presentation, mainly cutting out dead space, though I also rearranged the setlist a little. On the original boot, the Django Band solo set was attached to the end of the first set and disc, which I felt made little sense. So the intermission is now opening the second disc. And I moved "Eight Miles High" from its third-from-last place to the closing number, as the 14 minute+ jam isn't all that good, and I tend to like these longform songs as run-out grooves rather than being stuck with them in the middle of a program.

So, enjoy this very lovely Gene Clark program, one of his last moments of glory, and a wondeerful way of relistening to the many classics the man wrote.