Jimmy Carl Black, RIP.
ADDED: The album cover above is "We're Only in It for the Money," one of my favorite records, which is full of great songs including one that I think is just as appropriate for election eve as that one Andrew Sullivan saw fit to quote today. It goes like this:
There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love
There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above
Who cares if hair is long or short
Or sprayed or partly grayed...
We know that hair ain't where it's at
(There will come a time when you won't
Even be ashamed if you are fat!)
Wah wah-wah wah
There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love (dance and love)
There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above (rise above)
Who cares if you're so poor you can't afford
To buy a pair of mod a go-go stretch-elastic pants...
There will come a time when you can even
Take your clothes off when you dance
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10 comments:
What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's YOUR MIND
I think it's your mind
Ann, thanks for the photo. I knew the line, but not what JCB looked like. I have been in a huge Zappa mood lately, party stirred by the excellent Zappa Plays Zappa discs and partly because of your posts.
One of my favorite songs from the Jimmy Carl Black era is "Oh No." He played drums on the original version, no simple thing as Frank was also a percussionist.
So here are the words to "Oh No." They seem particularly cogent on the eve of the election.
"Oh no
I don’t believe it
You say that you think you know
The meaning of love
You say love is all we need
You say
With your love you can change
All of the fools
All of the hate
I think you’re probably
Out to lunch
Oh no
I don’t believe it
You say that you think you know
The meaning of love
Do you really think it can be told?
You say that you really know
I think
You should check it again
How can you say
What you believe
Will be the key to a
World of love?
All your love -
Will it save me?
All your love -
Will it save the world
From what we can’t understand
Oh no
I don’t believe it"
For the record, I don't believe it either.
Rest in Peace JCB.
Trey
His name popped into my mind the other day - meant to google it and find out what he has been up to for the last 40 years or so. Sorry to hear he died - he was something. Saw him, and the other Mothers at Johns Hopkins in '67. Zappa was the weirdest mother of them all...
What's there to live for?
Who needs the peace corps?
Think I'll just drop out
I'll go to Frisco
Buy a wig & sleep
On Owsley's floor
Walked past the wig store
Danced at the Fillmore
I'm completely stoned
I'm hippy & I'm trippy
I'm a gypsy on my own
I'll stay a week & get the crabs &
Take a bus back home
I'm really just a phony
But forgive me
'Cause I'm stoned
Every town must have a place
Where phony [liberals] meet;
Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up every street
GO TO SAN FRANCISCO
I could definitely get into some Zappa about now. In fact, it's just what the doctor ordered, and I shall fill that prescription right after a period of (blessed) silence in my home.
Jimmy Carl Black, RIP, for sure, and with thanks.
I'm sorry to learn of this... I just saw 200 Motels for the first time last week on TCM... JCB and Bunk Gardner and a couple of the other original Mothers formed "Geronimo Black" - their song "Bullwhip" has maybe the best sax solo I ever heard... thanks Ann for the note.
Jimmy Carl Black also was behind the band Geronimo Black, which had at least two spectacularly good songs: "L.A. County Jail" and "Low Ridin' Man."
I put these songs on my 8-cd best of the 60s compliation and they stand up to blues-rock hits by almost anyone in 1969 or thereabouts.
first line of "L.A. County Jail": "Well the junkie's layin' on the floor and dyin' / sure enough that's someone coppin' some kicks to the death" (accompanied by huge Bunk Gardner/Tjay Cantrelli saxes on a very ominous slow blues)
Rest in peace with our gratitude, JCB. The Mothers were a whole category unto themselves, and haven't they stood up well over time? I agree, Professor, a dose of Mothers around election time is always in order. Thank you for posting the news.
TV dinner by the pool
I'm so glad I finished school
Me tomorrow:
"I've got it.
I'll be sullen and withdrawn.
I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm of my own secret thoughts.
I'll lay on my back till dawn
in a semi-catatonic state,
and dream of (blog comments) that would irritate
a (new) executive kind of guy"
I knew Jimmy and believe me when I write, he couldn't stand Frank. He never paid his musicians and Herbie Cohen, Frank's manager, blocked the Grandmothers' every move until Frank gave up the ghost. I hope they can patch things up in "the next world". R.I.P. Jimmy
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