I visited my local used CD shop today and unlike many other times I've popped in there I found several items of interest...
Back on October 26, that night's Men In Trees episode opened with an up-tempo country-tinged cover of Becker & Fagen's "Dirty Work" playing. After some inquiring on one of the Steely Dan fan boards it soon was revealed that the artist was Kip Boardman and the CD was Hello, I Must Be... I filed that info away in the back of my mind and then today when I did my usual browsing through the country bin, well, there was Boardman saying "Hello" to me from between Clint Black and Brooks & Dunn. Honestly I think the CD was misfiled. It has a country-ish or folk-ish flavor, but at the risk of too many ishes I would consider it more pop-ish myself.
It was only $3, so how could I pass it up? I've listened to it twice now and while that's too soon to form lasting opinions, I definitely like it and am glad I picked it up.
For any who are interested (and somewhat diligent) you can hear five entire tracks from the album (including his take on "Dirty Work") by visiting kipboardman.com, clicking "ENTER WEBSITE," then clicking "MUSIC" and finally the button for "ALBUM DETAILS" to bring up the list of five tracks.
I liked the music of The Judds a little bit back when they were popular many years ago, but just never got around to picking up any of their stuff for some reason. I guess part of it was that while I liked many of their hits, when I'd see them in non-musical situations I just never cared for them personally for some reason. And since they were extremely popular in their day, such appearances were fairly frequent, perhaps enough to invoke my backlash reflex and make me not want to get their albums. That happens with me sometimes. Probably says more about me than them.
Anyway, I think it was near the end of their run as a duo act that the song "One Hundred And Two" was released as a single. It was not a huge hit for them and received only a little airplay, but for some reason it just really appealed to me and stuck in my mind. Then when various Judds collections appeared, even at bargain prices, I always checked to see if that song was on'em and when it wasn't, I'd pass.
Apparently, enough time has passed that I've gotten over any personal bias against them and when I came across Love Can Build A Bridge for $3 I scooped it up mainly just to have the long-remembered "One Hundred And Two." Upon listening to the whole CD, though, I found I was liking the other stuff too, even the ones I'd never heard before. So today when I spotted The Judds' Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Volume Two I scooped them up as well (again $3 each). That second collection even has a Dennis Linde song—"Had A Dream (For The Heart)"—on it. [I gave it a quick spin at the listening station in-store and, to be honest, it didn't sound like one of Linde's stronger efforts to me, but there's a lot of other good stuff on there I wanted.]
I'm thinking that eventually I'll probably get around to doing one of my custom compilations, making sure to include "One Hundred And Two" with all the other stuff I like best, while leaving out anything I find that maybe I don't care for as much. If I can pack everything I like on one disc I'll do that, but I suspect it will have to remain a two disc set, just slightly different from the official two volume hits set.
Recently I was watching the season three finale of the new Doctor Who and there was a scene in which the villain was lip-synching to a song taunting the Doctor. The song sounded great. I immediately went online to Google it and discovered it was "I Can't Decide" by the Scissor Sisters from their sophomore effort Ta-Dah.
According to Wikipedia "the Scissor Sisters are an American alternative band who formed in 2001. Their style draws from disco, glam rock and pop of New York City." Wiki also mentions that subsequent to the use of "I Can't Decide" in Doctor Who the song "...debuted at #64 on the UK Singles Chart, despite not officially being released as a single." I would say the song has an ABBA-esque sound to it in the vocal harmonies, but I could be wrong. I also think it's somewhat reminiscent of "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. Other vocals sound a bit Nilsson-esque and still others, at the risk of now becoming too esque-y, Bee-Gees-esque.
In addition to the Boardman and Judds CDs, I also found the Scissor Sisters' two CDs, their eponymous debut Scissor Sisters and—as mentioned—Ta-Dah today. I gave them both a quick try in-store and decided to take the chance on them even though they were more expensive at $5 and $8 respectively. I haven't listened to them all that closely or in full yet (Ta-Dah is playing now as I type this), so it's a little early to give definitive impressions, but they remind me some of Boy George in that their music is somewhat eclectic, but often has a strong pop techno dance feel with frequent gay themes.
Apparently they've had huge success overseas (and in Canada), but haven't done much here in the U.S. for some reason. I've read that there was some controversy when one of the band members made some disparaging comment about the pricing of CDs at a major U.S. retail chain, so that chain and several others (all under the same corporate umbrella) decided to not even stock Ta-Dah. Maybe that has something to do with their limited success here. Also, their debut album was not carried by Wal-Mart due to its "coarse language," so perhaps that didn't help either. The Amazon page specifically lists that album as having "explicit lyrics" and it also shows the parental advisory warning sticker on the album image. There are indeed some vulgarities on both albums and I normally don't go for that in music myself, but for some strange reason it just doesn't bother me in their case—can't really explain why.
A Steely aside... Among the early demo recordings of Becker and Fagen is the song "Ida Lee" where they specifically sing about "Big Ida Lee." Now, in the Scissor Sisters song "She's My Man" they sing a line "They'll hide you from Big Ida at the Sho' Enough Hotel." Ida doesn't seem to me to have ever been all that common a name, so two musical references to a "Big Ida"—even if they are more than 35 years apart—strikes me as slightly curious. It makes me wonder if there is some well-known Ida being referenced and I'm just not getting it.
Anyway, so far I like the Scissor Sisters' albums, but it's still a little too early to tell if I'll end up really liking them or just saying "ehhh." On their debut they do a version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" that I'm not so sure about yet. Also on their debut is "Return To Oz" which might appeal to a particular friend who loves The Wizard Of Oz. I definitely have decided that I still love "I Can't Decide" and I think in the end I'll be generally glad I grabbed both CDs, but time will tell.
2 days ago
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I think it comes from a blues song reference. Ida B. There was a show that had Pinetop Perkins performing Ida Lee and of course, this Steely Dan fans ears perked up and I recorded the show to watch. The song ended up being Ida B, not Ida Lee. To my utter dismay... :-)
That song may be connected to Ida B, the Civil and Woman's rights fighter. I don't remember content, but it would not suprise me.
I felt a head cold coming on me yesterday evening and last night, so I just didn't feel like Googling for further details as I was blogging and just threw that out there for the time being.
Still have the cold today, of course, but am at least rested up enough to feel like digging up whatever I can find—which it turns out isn't much. Here are my candidates for the "Big Ida Lee" refs...
1. Ida Louisa Lee—(1865–1943), historian and poet, was born at Kelso, New South Wales. She was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (F.R.G.S.) and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society (Hon. F.R.A.H.S.). Lee wrote a number of historical texts, some of which contain previously unpublished material.
2. Ida B. Wells—also known as Ida B. Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862–March 25, 1931), was an African American civil rights advocate and an early women's rights advocate active in the Woman Suffrage Movement. Fearless in her opposition to lynchings, Wells documented hundreds of these atrocities.
3. From Mae West: An Icon in Black and White (by Jill Watts) comes this reference to a Big Ida, who apparently was a character in a novel that West wrote and later was adapting into a play...
"While West recruited mostly inexperienced and inexpensive white cast members, she secured several highly acclaimed African-American performers for the play. She signed up Trixie Smith, one of the era's most popular blues singers, as Liza. For the Harlem Nightclub scene, West enlisted Connie's Inn dancing sensation Paul Meers, who had performed with the celebrated Josephine Baker. From the successful all-black production Green Pastures came Harry Owens, Henry Matthews, Allen Cohen, and Florence Lee. As Clara, the revamped Big Ida, West selected Olive Burgoyne, a veteran of numerous Boradway productions who, along with several others in the cast, had appeared in Show Boat. Rudolph Toombs, who played a new character, a Harlem resident named Mister Gay, had won critical praise in vaudeville as a tap dancer. In all, West signed up fourteen African-American actors and actresses; most had impressive credentials, and several had broken down the barriers in the white entertainment world."
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The (in)famous Brian Sweet Steely Dan bio and the companion book The Complete Guide to the Music of SD failed to shed any obvious light on Big Ida, barely mentioning the song at all.
So if I had to guess which of the three items I list above might most likely be the source of the Big Ida references, I'd have to say it'd be the Mae West novel. (Which according to what I've highlighted above, apparently contained an actual "Big Ida" character who later morphed into "Clara" for the stage production.)
But of course I have no way of knowing if either the Dan or Scissor Sisters references to Big Ida have anything at all to do with any of that. I'm just guessing about the Mae West novel as the source based on the seeming presence of certain sexual themes and coincidences—Mae West (the sexual icon herself), "Big Ida" (the obvious character connection), and even another character called "Mister Gay" (which I'm thinking may be more than just a simple name choice or double entendre).
How does that sound?
Oops. I just realized that in going from the novel to the stage production, "Big Ida" morphed into "Clara," but the "Mister Gay" character is noted as being new in the stage adaptation. So I can't really legitimately use both "connections" as evidence of either Mae West's novel or play as the source. Has to be one or the other, but not both, I would think. Oh well.
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