Mirror World
5 Centuries Later...
Last Week’s Bonus Round: “How Lucky” is a song written by John Prine; it appears on the 1979 Album “Pink Cadillac”. It was covered by Kurt Vile and Mr. Prine as a duet featuring both on the 2020 EP “Speed, Sound Lonely KV”.
“Kurt Samuel Vile (born January 3, 1980)[2] is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He is known for his solo work and as the former lead guitarist of rock band the War on Drugs. Both in the studio and during live performances, Vile is accompanied by his backing band, the Violators, which currently includes Jesse Trbovich (guitar, saxophone), Rob Laakso (guitar, bass, keyboards), Kyle Spence (drums) and Adam Langellotti (bass).” Credit: Wikipedia
From a 2020 Rolling Stone article: “Kurt Vile was sitting in the Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville last December when he floated a pipe-dream idea to producer Dave Ferguson. Vile was slated to perform at the Grand Ole Opry with his hero John Prine two nights later and asked if Ferguson would call the songwriting legend and ask if he felt like dropping by the studio.
“Ferg was like, ‘What are you doing, Prine?’” Vile recalls. “Prine was like, ‘I’m watching the game!’”
Vile was astounded when, later that evening, after finishing his game, Prine showed up at the Butcher Shoppe. That night, Vile and Prine recorded a touching duet of the latter’s “How Lucky,” one of five tracks that will be included on Speed, Sound, Lonely, Vile’s new EP due next month (Ed. 2020). Named after Vile’s cover of Prine’s “The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” and produced by Ferguson, the release represents Vile’s fullest foray into rootsy finger-picking and his first-ever recording in Nashville, with help from veterans like Pat McLaughlin (“a real fucking firecracker,” Vile says approvingly), Kenny Malone, and Dan Auerbach.” Credit: Rolling Stone.com Link: Speed, Sound, Lonely KV
Ed. The original is track 9 on “Pink Cadillac” by Mr. Prine, and the album was originally panned by critics, but was a favorite among his fans:
“The album received mostly negative reviews upon release. Writing in Rolling Stone in 1979, David Marsh deemed it "an almost unqualified disaster" and insisted that Prine "has never sung such a half-assed grab bag of songs, partly because he wrote so few of them (and is in no way a classic interpreter of any material except his own), partly because the outside stuff he chose is so thoroughly mediocre."
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote, "Prine has never rocked harder. But he's slurring his vocals like some toothless cartoon bluesman emulating an Elvis throwaway — related to the Sun sound, I guess, but perversely."[3]
Writing for Allmusic, critic William Ruhlman says of the album "Prine wrote only five of the ten songs...and even though the covers were of high caliber — notably Roly Salley's "Killing the Blues" and Arthur Gunter's "Baby Let's Play House," a song Elvis Presley did at Sun — Pink Cadillac was a good idea that went slightly awry in the execution. If Prine had had the songs as well as the studio, it would have been among his best." The album has become a fan favorite, however, with Prine revealing to David Fricke in 1993, "I get people now coming up and saying they're sorry for not liking it then, that they've gone back to it and really like it now."“ Credit: Wikipedia Pink Cadillac
Ed: I’ve commented before on Mr. Prine’s pointed riposte to critics in the lyrics to his song “When I Get To Heaven” from his album “Tree Of Forgiveness” and I can’t help but wonder if these (unfair, IMHO) critical reviews may have been at least a partial source. Mr. Prine had to put up with a lot of (again, unfair IMHO) criticism of his vocals, guitar skills and whatnot:
“Then as God as my witness, I'm gettin' back into show business
I'm gonna open up a nightclub called "The Tree of Forgiveness"
And forgive everybody ever done me any harm
Well, I might even invite a few choice critics, those syph'litic parasitics
Buy 'em a pint of Smithwick's and smother 'em with my charm” Credit: AZLyrics
Ed. (I’m doing a lot of these lately) The “cocktail” referred to is called a “Handsome Johnny”, so named by Mr. Prine himself as the story goes, and supposedly popular in some Nashville bars. It consists of ice, ginger ale, vodka and a twist of lime, but is apparently only considered authentic if the bartender drops the lime twist accurately into the glass while the arm is extended horizontally, a requirement created by Mr. Prine, who (though the story is perhaps apocryphal) sometimes got his Handsome Johnny for free if done incorrectly! Also, “Smithwick’s” is an Irish red ale-style beer.
So today’s and yesterday’s posts sort of got reversed, kinda like the “mirror world” trope in comic books and other places, for example where Superman meets Evil Superman in a mirror world and stuff like that. I hadn’t preserved as many links as I usually do for Thursday “Links” posts, and I ended up talking a lot about my new guitar. Of course, after I hit the “publish” button and got around to reading the day’s emails, a bunch of great links showed up. So today, I’m going to talk a little about my experience with the folks at Zager Guitars (very positive!) when I sent them an email with a link to yesterday’s post, and then catch up with some of the links that made their way into my inbox too late for yesterday’s post.
First, Zager Guitars customer service is, in my experience, top-notch. I received a prompt reply thanking me for my kind words about the guitar, and inviting me to post a review on their website. Great! I will do just that after I receive the soundhole pickup I ordered because I couldn’t bring myself to have a hole drilled in the end of the “lower bout” (fancy guitar talk for the “bottom of the guitar”) for an end pin/strap button. That means I won’t be able to use the really nice guitar strap that was included with it, but I’ll make do somehow…
Apparently the internet kerfuffles about Zager Guitars center on accusations that the reviews they post on their website are fake and self generated. Kinda "sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Credit: Bill S., “Macbeth” - Ed. Did you know there is a superstition about bad luck if you say “Macbeth” in a theatre? You’re supposed to say “The Scottish Play” - don’t say I didn’t warn you!), at least in my limited experience with them, and I frankly don’t see a reason to self-post glowing reviews - the guitars, at least the one I bought, speak for themselves. Anyway, my review will be honest and I’ll share it here when I post it there. I really like the guitar, it certainly passes my personal “fits in my hand” test, and appears well made and as advertised. It doesn’t have the power and low end “boom” of my Martins, but it also doesn’t have the somewhat annoying phenomena of the “Martin thump” which seems common when fretting the A string at the third and fourth frets. Your mileage may vary.
So a few links and we’ll “reverso” to Normal World (such as it is) next week:
First, some articles from Songtown:
Opening Lyrics - first impressions!
"Poor Man's Copyrights" This one goes along with my previous post about owning copyrights for all three royalty streams - you really can’t just “mail it in”.
And a couple of spot on articles about avoiding injury from Acoustic Guitar Magazine (especially applicable for older guitarists, but young guitarists can become older guitarists almost before you know it - take care of yourself at every age!):
Definitely enough for today!
Bonus Round: And Evans…
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic