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New Amsterdam - so good, they named it twice
by Tom Southam | 04/05/10
This came to me from a mate of John’s, Neil Storey, former press officer at Island Records and our aide celebre in NYC over the Battenkill weekend.
Rules..? There are no rules – just a few guidelines… So, tipping the Trilby in a chapeau sort of manner, here is a suggested companion CD to Tom – yes, I shave my legs more often than my face – Southam’s original compilation.
So… lets kick off with Take Me For A Night In New York – Elbow Bones & The Racketeers which, in brief, was a quasi amalgam of Dr Savannah & Kid Creole – under the baton of the zoot-suited ringmaster August Darnell himself. This was the opening cut to their one and only record – but, it’s the full-length, six minute or so 12” version (a video of which is easily found on YouTube) that really late-night swings from its big-drums kick-in right through the truly sublime horn arrangements all topped off by a yearning, starry-morning-dewey-eyed, Cory Daye vocal.
Harlem Shuffle – yes, there’s the Stones version from 1986 but it’s the Bob & Earl original that cuts the mustard this end. It didn’t much bother the chart-compilers in America but the opposite was true in the UK when it slid gracefully into the top ten during 1969. Still sounds like it was recorded yesterday too.
Empire State Of Mind – ok, ok, I confess – after Grand Master Flash bewitched an unsuspecting world with his Wheels Of Steel and Tom Tom Club hit first base with Wordy Rappinghood, pretty much the entire genre of Rap and self became uneasy bedfellows… I simply couldn’t get a grip on the clutch-your-crotch / wear-your-jeans-halfway-down-your-arse and sport dark-glasses-indoors bollox until… Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ total out-of-the-park homerun with its entirely glorious hook fizzed the airwaves.
King Of The New York Streets – and, long ago, Dion DiMucci was precisely that. The man who gave up his seat in the plane that took off from Iowa on a frozen winter’s night in 1959 that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper had a string of majestic 60’s hits (The Wanderer et al) before drink and drugs took hold. Cleaned-up and having found God along the way, this is culled from his Dave Edmunds’ produced 1989 magnum opus Yo Frankie (that album also includes Written On A Subway Wall on which Paul Simon sings).
On Broadway – a zillion different versions of the timeless classic from the collaborative pens of Mann/ Weill / Leiber & Stoller that was first made famous by The Drifters (with a young Phil Spector playing guitar)… For my money, however, the uber-reading is by the Kidderminster-kid – Jess Roden, originally demo’d in London, re-worked under Allen Toussaint in Memphis, re-mixed by Chris Blackwell in London and the opening cut on Jess’ first solo record. A stunning cut above the rest.
Take The A Train – Billy Strayhorn’s classic / Duke Ellington’s signature tune and it’s a toss up between Dave Brubeck’s version or Ella Fitzgerald demonstrating just how scat-singing should be.
Walking Down Madison – written by Johnny Marr and Kirtsy MacColl it’s the ‘6am ambient mix’ which gets the vote from the opening cut to Kirsty’s Electric Landlady album…
The Apple Stretching – this paean to the city that never sleep wakening-up was originally included on Ms Jones’ Living My Life album (the last of her Sly & Robbie-centric Compass Point trilogy). Grace’s bitter-sweet snarl matched to the rolling thunder which is Sly & Robbie’s ridim section is, however, at its optimum on the hard-to-find eight+ minute version of Melvin Peebles’ original Broadway tune.
Hey, Manhattan – from the prolific pen of chief Sprout, Paddy McAloon – peerless lounge-lizard lyrics in amongst a beguiling swirl of Thomas Dolby infused strings and harps and an all-too-rare outing for Wendy Smith’s backing vocals. Off of 1988’s From Langley Park To Memphis album.
Downtown Train – its highly probable that Tom Waits’ grand-children will never need to work with the dollars their grandfather will have earned via covers of his songs. From the Rain Dogs album – this, the original makes Rod the Mod’s version sound paltry – weirdly, though, that was the one that got Rod a Grammy nomination… which probably goes a long way to proving that people who judge those sort of things have limited taste.
New York, New York – impossible to leave out (sorry Tom)… and despite Ms Minelli’s brave stab, there’s only the one that’ll do here. Yep, Ol’ Blue Eyes tonsils wrap themselves seamlessly around the song thats about as synonymous with the city as any.
Last Exit To Brooklyn – the theme from the film from the book of the same name – Hubert Selby’s 1964 novel that documented working class Brooklyn of the 50’s seen through the eyes of all manner of low life including junkies and alcoholics. Stunning soundtrack by the twang-meister himself – Mark Knopfler.
Times Square – three versions to choose from and, you know what… I’m really not sure which to go for. There’s the live one from Blazing Away, Marianne Faithfull’s album recorded in St Anne’s Church in Brooklyn on which La Faithfull’s sixty-a-day voice is at its cracked finest; there’s her studio original from Dangerous Acquaintances and there is co-writer Barry Reynolds’ own from his hard-to-find solo album, I Scare Myself. Damn, decisions, decisions…
Hooverville – biggish (British) hit for The Christians (and, yes, they were all named Christian) that centered around the popular name for the shanty towns that grew up in the Depression era in Central Park (among other places) that were named after US president Herbert Hoover.
First We Take Manhattan – torn again; should it be Jennifer Warne’s from Famous Blue Raincoat, should it be the bard’s original with its souped up synths (well, that’d be souped-up Leonard-style) or Joe Cocker’s windmill-armed Sheffield steel throat-like-gravel roar? Cohen’s own – from his 1991 Live In London – just shades it
Downtown – Petula Clark, Frank Sinatra, The Killer Barbies… errr, nope… it has to be Athens, Georgia’s be-wigged finest – The B52’s… final cut on their eponymous debut – original vinyl copies of which came shrink-wrapped with their first 45, Rock Lobster.
And, finally…
Fairytale Of New York – a stone-ground, bona-fide classic and probably (very probably) the greatest Christmas song ever written. MacGowan and MacColl trading bickering, hopes crushed insults. Little known factoid – Kirsty wasn’t actually due to sing on this, she only provided guide-vocals since her then husband Steve Lillywhite was producing the Pogues at the time. However, MacGowan liked what she’d done and the rest as they say, became history.
