R.E.M. made their historic visit to Mountain Stage 30 years ago this week. The appearance was just one of three shows scheduled to promote their upcoming release “Out of Time.” The other appearances included in the media tour were “Saturday Night Live” and MTV’s “Unplugged.”
The anniversary is all the reason we need to revisit their performance of “It’s The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” recorded live in Charleston, W.Va. on April 28th, 1991.
Although Leon Redbone’s 2018 documentary was satirically titled, “Please, Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” it’s impossible not to talk about- and savor- those special times in the presence of the truly original, and refreshingly odd, stage character.
“Leon Redbone was a man of mystery – a musical anachronism who seemed to have walked off a vaudeville stage and into the 21st Century,” said Mountain Stage founder, host and music director, Larry Groce. “Only after his passing last year, did we find out that he was of Armenian heritage, born in Cyprus and raised in Canada.”
Redbone (whose real name was Dickman Gobalian) passed away May 30, 2019 at the age of 69 – and even in his passing gave everyone one more smile – “It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th, 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127,” shared his long-time publicist Jim Della Croce.
Redbone, who appeared on “https://vimeo.com/155136776″>Saturday Night Live” as the musical guest twice during SNL’s first season, stopped by Mountain Stage on May 20, 1990 for his first of six visits to the program. His final appearance was in 2007, and can be heard via NPR Music.
“One of his most important champions was Bob Dylan who heard him early on and said if he had a record company, that Leon Redbone would be one of the first artists he would sign,” Groce said of Redbone, who would go on to record nearly 20 studio and live releases. In recent years, White Stripes founder Jack White’s Third Man Records re-released his earliest records as well as a new record of old material, Long Way From Home.
With arguably one of the most unique singing voices in modern recorded music, and the ability to fingerpick a mess of jazz and blues like it was peeled straight off of a 78, Redbone went smooth rolling through his ’90 Mountain Stage set with long-time collaborators Dan Levinson on clarinet and Ralph Norton on cornet and baritone saxophone.
Credit Mountain Stage Archive
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Leon Redbone, seen here in an archival photo performing on Mountain Stage May 20, 1990.
With his penchant for dynamics and song choice-he rarely used a set list- on full display, Redbone crept into character with his trademark Panama hat and dark sunglasses, setting the radio dial back to 1929 for Emmett Miller’s shadowy “Ghost of St. Louis Blues,” a nod to W.C. Handy’s 1914 song said to have birthed the blues.
“There’s a creepy melody/like a fiend it keeps haunting me, all night long it rambles on through my brain ‘til I am near insane/It’s the most peculiar tone….”
He and his mates shared nostalgic, vaudevillian comedy bits between sets. Norton bragged about being “the head man in the show with the Metropolitan Opera Company and able to play way ahead of everybody,” after purposefully starting a song before Redbone who then asked him to “Wait until I start playing. I will let you know when.” They then galloped straight into the frisky rhythm of the Dixieland Jazz number, “You Get Anything I Got,” with Norton’s baritone saxophone barking and Levinson’s spry and playful clarinet skipping along.
A highlight in a set full of fun banter occurs when Redbone pulls out an instant camera. “If you wouldn’t mind getting a little closer together,” Redbone almost whispers as the crowd roars in laughter and delight. “And all of you out in Radioland move closer to the radio, I would like to take a picture. Easy now. Thank you. You can sit down now. We’ll take a look at it a little later. I will be passing it around and I would appreciate you signing it.”
Redbone burrowed into the Depression era blues of the singing brakeman, Jimmie Rodgers for one of his favorites, the 1931-penned, “My Good Gal Gone Blues” with the baritone saxophone and clarinet moaning and crying sweet and lowdown.
Not one to leave anyone feeling down, Redbone picked up the mood and the pace for a three-song closing romp – a practical three-man Mardi Gras parade that included: “Polly Wolly Doodle,” (“a song that everyone knows. It’s been around for over 100 years so you’ve had plenty of time to learn it). “Big Time Woman From Way Out West” (done as Redbone joked “in the people’s key of B-flat”) and “Diddy Wah Diddy,” that Redbone said was a favorite song of Brother Bill. “He used to come into town, riding a wildcat with a rattlesnake for a whip and barbed wire for a necktie. He’d go into a drugstore and drink a dime’s worth of carbolic acid and wash it down with dynamite. He would holler I’m a bad man. He was so bad. There was only two bad men in that town, and he was both of them.”
As Groce aptly described the late, great Redbone in closing …. “to use a phrase that is overused, but absolutely accurate in this case, he was ‘one of a kind.’ ”
Yes, there was only one Leon Redbone and he was one of them.
This week we’re looking back to a 2010 episode we recorded at the Clay Center as voted on by our listeners.
Mountain Stage this week looks back to a 2010 episode that we recorded at The Clay Center in Charleston, W.Va. with Ani DiFranco, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Andy McKee, Erin McKeown and Chuck Prophet.
San Francisco band leader and journeyman rocker Chuck Prophet performed songs from his album ¡Let Freedom Ring!, recorded, coincidentally, during the early onset of the H1N1 virus, in Mexico City, Mexico in 2009. Prophet and his band wore their masks to the studio, all the while enduring the regular power-outages common in the area resulting in multiple lost takes.
Our Song of the Week, “Hot Talk.” is a breezy and cryptic jaunt that captures the immediacy and the chaos of the album.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Trombone Shorty, Erin McKeown and Ani DiFranco join for the finale song in February, 2010.
This week Larry Groce is going back four decades to pull some “Gems From the Archive.” We’ll hear some of our favorite performances from 1990 on this week’s special episode.
The music of The Holmes Brothers-Sherman and Wendell Holmes, with their life-long friend Popsy Dixon- has always held a special place in the pop music canon. Their songwriting and instrumental chops, coupled with topical subject matter, made for powerful performances. Our Song of the Week, “Big Boss Man,” is from the band’s first of many appearances on Mountain Stage, recorded May 6, 1990.
The song would be included in the band’s 2010 release Simple Truths.
Sadly drummer Willie “Popsy” Dixon died on January 9, 2015 of cancer. In April 2015, Wendell Holmes, vocalist, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, announced his retirement from touring and performing due to health concerns, and passed away on June 19.
Older brother, Sherman Holmes, vocalist, bassist, pianist, and songwriter with The Holmes Brothers, continues to celebrate and explore The Holmes Brothers legacy, leading a new band: The Sherman Holmes Project, who appeared on Mountain Stage in July 2017.
See the entire playlist from our “Gems From the Archive: 1990” here, and listen starting Friday April 17 on these NPR stations.
This week we are revisiting a special edition of Mountain Stage that our host Larry Groce originally compiled in the wake of September 11, 2001. “Songs of Hard Times and Hope” includes uplifting and inspirational songs from Sarah McLachlan, R.E.M., Billy Bragg, The Band, June Tabor, Richard Thompson and more.
For our Song of the Week, Larry chose Rodney Crowell’s “Love Is All I Need,” which originally appears on Crowell’s 2001 album Houston Kid.
Bill Withers was not only an American pop music icon, he was a symbol of American music itself. His songs transcended styles and genres and bridged cultures and generations. “Lean On Me”, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Use Me”, “Grandma’s Hands” and many of his other classics can’t be easily labeled, but they can be and have been performed by soul, blues, jazz, rock, country, gospel and pop artists and even sampled hundreds of times in rap and hip hop. That’s the definition of a great song.
Bill was his own man from start to finish, fiercely independent and uncompromising. He received much deserved fame and recognition, but steadfastly refused to be packaged and sold in ways he didn’t believe in, probably sometimes to his financial detriment. I attended the ceremony when he was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame’s first class in 2007. His words of acceptance were profound and inspiring. He told of listening to soul, blues and gospel music at home in Slab Fork and then going across the tracks to friends’ homes where he heard country music from singers such as fellow inductee, Little Jimmy Dickens. It all became part of his unique and unmistakable sound.
Bill became an active inspiration and driving force in the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame and more than once expressed his gratitude to its founder, Michael Lipton, for putting him back in touch with his home state. Michael invited me to join him as Bill’s guest when Bill was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. We sat beside some of Bill’s old friends from Slab Fork. The show was a marathon that lasted over six hours and Bill was second to last, right before Ringo Starr was inducted by Paul McCartney. Even in that company, Bill’s remarks were the highlight. He was the rare talent who knew his worth but retained true humility. He was inducted by Stevie Wonder. John Legend led his musical tribute. I’ll never forget Bill recognizing all the night’s other honorees and then slyly adding. “But I’m the only one being inducted by a Wonder and a Legend.”
Credit E-WV
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E-WV
As I said, to me Bill is a symbol of American music. More importantly, he’s a symbol of what America is at its best: A blend of strong flavors that, with the right cook, makes a masterpiece . He’s also a symbol of West Virginia. He grew up in tough times and overcame many obstacles, from poverty to stuttering. He joined the service and later got a factory job. He began writing songs later than most successful writers and although he believed strongly in himself, he never thought he would be the one to make them famous. Booker T. Jones told me that when Bill came into the recording session that became his first album, he thought someone else was going to be the artist. Unassuming but resolute, fame and fortune were not Bill’s gods. These are characteristics that I associate with West Virginians
After only eight years, Bill walked away from a performance career that most artists would kill for. He’d had enough of the indignities of a music business that he never really wanted to become a part of. He wasn’t driven by the unbridled ego, greed and ambition that seems ever present in today’s world, in and out of music. He quit performing, but his songs never retired and will be in demand as long as good taste survives.
I wish everyone, and especially every child in West Virginia could have met Bill Withers. In a few words, his pithy point of view could cut to the heart of what is important and put you in your place while never exalting himself. His main message to children was simple: “…take the limits off of yourself – and realize that there’s no magic that somebody else has in the world that you don’t.”
