Here’s a song to get us started in the morning, or evening, or whatever time zone you happen to be in. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Maybank and myself played it last nite and it is indeed a wonderful song. Composed by Robbie Robertson and sung by the great Levon Helm back in 1969 or so, it’s a fine song to sing along with in the morning, evening, or anytime as I was saying.
Here’s Long Black Veil to sing along with too.
……..OK, enough singing along. Coffee break’s over. Back on your heads.
What nobler goal than to get better at what you do: To get better at your work, to learn more in your studies, to be a better person, to be more artful at your art. Just to get better. Really, what else can you do anyway? Just try to be better.
I picked up the phrase “just trying to get better” from the sports teams (the NBA teams, that’s what I watch anyway). You know, after the game when they interview the players and coaches, you’ll often hear them say that their goal is just “to get better”. They don’t talk about winning the championship, rather that their their goal is “to get better”. And really, in the NBA, if you’re not the Golden State Warriors, your only chance for a championship is to somehow to try to just “get better”.
Getting better was also the subject of Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s foot-tapper on the Sargeant Pepper’s album: “I got to believe it’s getting better. Getting better all the time”. Definitely, that’s one way good way of looking at it. Be an optimist. Go ahead. The more I think of it, getting better is a better and better thing to do all the time. Also, may I add that, if you’re not feeling welll, getting better is a very good thing to do.
All this by way of introducing a few songs that Maybank and I are always playing. That’s right: we keep trying to get better. And to get these songs to sound better. Ultimately, it would be nice to do them justice. Also, it is always important to just “keep on playin’ that country Music”. Anyhoo, here are two that we always do. (Everything here is a sing-along, by the way)
Long Black Veil, a written song meant to sound like a folk classic done by Johnny Cash, the Band and a host of others:
And here’s Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, a song from 1919, and forever a pleasure to play. Eric Clapton has the most popular version right now, but back in the 20’s Bessie Smith did it, and had a big hit with it.
“Ten years ago on a cold dark night”… Bumba and Maybank give this song, Long Black Veil, – written in 1959 by Danny Dill and M.J. Wilkins expressly to sound like a traditional folk ballad and to become an instant folk classic, which it did – well we give it another go. Click to hear it and join in on the choruses.
I’ve wanted for a long time to send this one in to Dave’s Blog of Funny Names. Lefty Frizzell has won special recognition on Dave’s blog. And rightly so. What a name and what a singer!
Arguably Lefty’s greatest hit was Long Black Veil, a song written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin. I heard it first on a Johnny Cash album. The Band did a cover of it on their first album. Dave Mathews, Joan Baez and every country singer and his brother have recorded it. Not to be left out of the fun, here’s Bumba and Maybank giving it a go. It’s an easy song to play and sing so give it a try. The lyrics of course tell a poignant story.
“Long Black Veil”
Ten years ago on a cool dark night
There was someone killed ‘neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me
The judge said “Son, what is your alibi?
If you were somewhere else then you won’t have to die”
I spoke not a word although it meant my life
I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife
She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave where the night winds wail
Nobody knows, no, and nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
The scaffold was high and eternity neared
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil she cries over my bones
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