the regular joes

Playlist #208: Uncle Gert

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It’s Tuesday, but I only just got back from a quick trip to Oklahoma last night. Yes, I said I was going to Ohio last week for Spring Break, but then a difficult and unfortunate thing happened: my Uncle Randy died. So instead of Ohio, I headed to Oklahoma. Anyway, here are ten songs that I think of when I think of my uncle.

  1. The Traveling Wilburys, “Poor House”: Whenever the family gets together, the guitars come out. And whenever the guitars come out, we play this song. Uncle Randy was the lead player of the family, the guy who knew all the parts in each song and can usually come up with something on the spot that perfectly fits the song. He loved playing this one and asked me to sing it every time.
  2. Chicago, “25 or 6 to 4”: Apparently both my dad and my uncle were completely and totally in love with Chicago back in the 70s, and this was always their favorite by them. The Terry Kath guitar solo in this one is a hell of a challenge, but apparently Randy was able to master it in high school.
  3. The Beatles, “Two Of Us”: We loved playing this one in the guitar pickin’ circle. It’s got beautiful vocals from Lennon and McCartney, giving my dad and me a chance to each sing one part. This generally works better when we’re not trying to harmonize, as I tend to follow any other voice I hear in terms of how they’re singing.
  4. Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”: My uncle did a long-running series of covers called “Family, Friends, and Me.” He did well over 100 covers of rock and roll songs over the years, recently releasing the seventh volume online just a couple of weeks ago. One of the songs for this most recent collection was this Pink Floyd tune, one I’ve loved since I heard it so many years ago.
  5. The Eagles, “Desperado”: A beautiful ballad that Gert’s friend Teresa sang on the seventh volume of “Family, Friends, and Me.” She does it perfect, and I honestly can’t imagine anyone else ever singing it.
  6. The Regular Joes, “Flame On, Fire of Love”: My uncle was in a number of bands over the years, but the one I will always remember was called the Regular Joes. They were a rock and roll band who did a share of covers and originals, and this original was on their last record. It’s one of those rock songs that manages to be wistful and sad and beautiful all at once, and it’s always been one of my favorites of theirs.
  7. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”: There are good songs on every single CCR album, even the really terrible last couple. But this one stands tall even among their vaunted catalog. We played this one all the time in the pickin’ circles.
  8. Boston, “More Than a Feeling”: The guy behind the band Boston, Tom Scholz, reminds me a lot of Uncle Randy. They were both perfectly at home in the studio and crafted multi-layered, phenomenal songs.
  9. The Cottrell Boys, “Rainin’ on a Thursday”: My dad and Randy recorded a few songs themselves, just for fun, and I usually wrote lyrics for them. This is one of the songs dad and I are most proud of, and they made it sound perfect in my opinion.
  10. Foo Fighters, “My Hero”: There’s a photo of my uncle, from when he was young, sitting there in sunglasses and holding a Strat. For his birthday a few years ago, his son, my cousin Chris, gave him a blown-up version of the photo with the lyrics to this song on the back. It featured in the funeral, even. It’s a song that’s now indelibly linked with my uncle in my mind.

Playlist #66

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Happy Monday and welcome to August, everyone! As always, you can back me on Patreon, and there’s still that GoFundMe for my wife. We’re woefully underfunded for the month of August, so any little bit helps.

  1. Simply Three, “Dance Monkey”: The podiatrist my wife goes to always has some interesting music playing in the waiting room. This was playing there last week, and I kinda dig it.
  2. Jackson Browne, “Jamaica Say You Will”: Jackson Browne is just hands down one of the best songwriters of the 20th century, and this song – which opens up his self-titled album – is a good example of his songcraft.
  3. Aerosmith, “Big Ten Inch Record”: Aerosmith are the masters of what Nanny Ogg would call “single-intenders.” They’re not quite double entendres, because there is no subtlety to them whatsoever. But my, are they fun.
  4. The Wallflowers, “I’ll Let You Down (But Will Not Give You Up)”: Oh, Jakob. You know what a Wallflowers song sounds like, and you hit so close on most of this album. Letting Rami Jaffe go was a mistake, though.
  5. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “I’ll Bet On You”: The chord changes and melody for this song are based on a Lapdog song (made up of half of the band while Toad was on hiatus back in the early oughts), but then Glen Phillips came in and said, “Hey, this sounds great, but you know what would sound greater? If I wrote new lyrics for it and sang on this one instead of one of you other yokels.” And then they did that.
  6. Three Dog Night, “Shambala”: Shambala is a mythical place, rather like El Dorado or that Tibetan monastery where the Iron Fist trained. It’s also a pretty good song.
  7. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “When The Roses Bloom Again”: Yeah, the third volume of Mermaid Avenue was a collection of diminishing returns, but even in among all the fair-to-middling stuff on there, you find the occasional gem such as this one. It’s a gorgeous song and Jeff Tweedy’s vocals are perfect.
  8. Radiohead, “Ill Wind”: It’s an ill wind blows no man good, or something like that. Hey, I wrote a book with a title very similar!
  9. The Regular Joes, “Restless”: Found an email from my uncle the other day that he wrote back when I first moved out to Virginia (some 17 years ago now). It has the chord changes for this song in there, ’cause I wanted to learn to play it on guitar. It’s a very simple song, chords-wise, so I’ll probably be playing it later today.
  10. The Allman Brothers Band, “Midnight Rider”: They are just determined not to let the midnight rider catch them. Nosiree, not those Allman boys.

Playlist #13

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I’m traveling to Oklahoma this week, so all of this week’s songs are by Oklahoma artists or bands related to Oklahoma in some way, shape, or form. It’s also longer than most of our lists, ’cause I couldn’t leave any of these songs off.

  1. John Fullbright, “Jericho (Live)”: Sort of Oklahoma’s favorite musical son. He’s a damn good singer, and this is my favorite song by him. I also sang on the same tribute album as him once, so we’re, like, connected and stuff.
  2. Parker Millsap, “Truck Stop Gospel”: He’s a good ol’ country boy just pickin’ and grinnin’.
  3. Samantha Crain, “Santa Fe”: A Shawnee girl (my hometown), she apparently went to high school with my brother?
  4. The Regular Joes, “Restless”: My uncle’s old rock and roll band. He’s the lead guitarist.
  5. The Flaming Lips, “Waitin’ For A Superman”: Yeah, this is two Flaming Lips songs in a row, but it’s my playlist and I’ll put the Lips on as many playlists as I wanna.
  6. Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land”: Patron Saint of Okies, unionist, and antifa before being antifa was cool.
  7. Tulsa, “Shaker”: They called their band Tulsa. Like I wasn’t gonna include one of their songs on this list.
  8. Turnpike Troubadours, “Every Girl”: Country hoedown! Bop along and sing along if you know the words.
  9. Cross Canadian Ragweed, “In Oklahoma”: The late-90s Oklahoma musical success story that still kicks out new stuff even now.
  10. Billy Bragg & WIlco, “Way Over Yonder In the Minor Key”: “I come from a place called Okfuskee,” this song begins. That’s where the town of Okemah, where my grandparents lived for so long (and where Woody Guthrie is from), is located.
  11. Leon Russell, “Tight Rope”: He’s an Okie from Lawton. Dude was the session musician back in the ’60s and ’70s, and he continued to kick ass until his death in 2016.
  12. Bruce Springsteen, “My Oklahoma Home”: Hey, remember the Dust Bowl and how it tried to kill the Great Plains? This song is about that, though it has a sense of humor about things.
  13. JD McPherson, “Signs and Signifiers”: This guy does ’50s-style rave-up electric blues like it never went out of style. This song is slower than most of the rest of the album it’s from, but it’s still pretty awesome.
  14. James McMurtry, “Choctaw Bingo”: Let’s have a family reunion in Okahoma, why not?
  15. Merle Haggard, “Okie From Muskogee”: Look, if I didn’t include this song on this list, they’d take away my Okie License, and then I wouldn’t be able to go snipe hunting anymore, and I still haven’t caught a damn snipe yet.