music playing is 'TILL I KNOW YOU'RE FEELIN' OKAY' (Rob Dokter) (c) taken from my 2nd solo-CD 'Long Way Away'. As recorded by Homegrown Tomatoes. Musicians: Gerrit van Berkum: acoustic bass / Stef Eijkelenkamp: harmonica / Aart Keizer: backingvocal + shakin'-that-ol'-pot-o-beans / Gerard Buisman : acoustic leadguitar + backing vocal / Rob Dokter: vocals + acoustic rythmguitar

page to be furhter filled! check in later as well !

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Story nr. 3: " Lost Crate of Albums - a musical journey" with (again) several links to to the music talked about.

 Story nr. 2: "......... and the music they left behind ........."'

Before i will lead you further through the crate in the story below and further through my vinyl-collection i do want to share some memories with you by reminiscing a few of my heroes who have died over the last years and the music that they left behind for us to listen to some more.

Ofcourse there is the loss to this world of my alltime hero JOHNNY CASH. Sorry , there are just not enough words in any language on this earth to fully describe the meaning of his music to me and probably to a whole lot of people. We are very lucky that we have his large legacy of songs to listen to for comfort and channels like YouTube are also filled with lots of rare stuff. In a minor attempt to honour the sound and the man that spread it around the world, i also uploaded some rare stuff there out of my own collection. You can check my latest uploads on the subpage 'YouTube Video-links' on the left any time you want. There's more to come whenever i find the time to do so.

Another giant where i just don't seem to find the right words for is ofcourse WAYLON JENNINGS ! One thing i have learned from Waylon through a statement he once made in an interview is that: ' there's always one other way to try things and that is YOUR way and you all have the right to try that if only for once.' There's also the stories about Waylon told by Billy Joe Shaver during the time i was more or less Billy Joe Shaver's  roadmanager once in Holland as i hosted him in my Steakhouse and CountryClub 'Witte Paarden'. It was there that i met two very nice guitarplayers as well, who were to be his back-up for the short European Trip he made that year. Jerry Hollingsworth ( a close friend once to his son EDDIE SHAVER (unfortunately Eddie Shaver is no longer with us as well...). Eddie taught every lick to his dad's song to Jerry and man! Jerry knows how to pick them) and the infamous Panama Red - as i first heard somebody call him before having seen him yet. We drove quite some miles in my Renault Megane back in 2002 or so; spent some time sightseeing Holland and we really had fun. Always kept good contact with Panama Red after that and we ended up doing several annual repeated tours of France in the summer together. More to that subject some other time. Or you can go to his website and read some Roadstories there about our touring together in France. Panama also had lots of story to tell about Waylon as he used to hang around in that 'Honky Tonk Heroes'-circle around the pinballmachine in the early 70s. Waylon is Waylon and will always be Waylon. No one like him! THE Hoss!

One of the artists i have been collecting for years was STEPHEN BRUTON. (link added feb.20) He started out as a youngster in the band of Kris Kristofferson as a guitarplayer in the late 70s. Did sidework for Delbert McClinton and lots of others. His songs were recorded by The Highwaymen (Cash,Jennings,Nelson, Kristofferson) amongst others. A few months ago i was wondering why a new CD took so long and i found that he had passed away. Too young at the age of 59. Odd feeling. The last years he had become a very famous person in Austin Texas musical circles (and far beyond that too!) as i was told by yet another Texan who played 'Witte paarden' more than once: 'Scrappy' Judd Newcomb. He visited my CountryClub on two occasions: first on a packagedeal with Troy Campbell and Beaver Nelson and the second time as a duo with Beaver Nelson. Anyway, the music of Stephen Bruton certainly had that edge we musicians always hope to find and to be able to put into our music. With him 'the edge' always seem to have come natural.

That same internet taught me that JERRY REED was no longer with us. Having well over 50 records in my record-collection by 'The Claw' i felt really stupid having had missed that. Forever The Snowman! 'A thing called love' for Johnny Cash was one of the many frequently covered songs he wrote. 'Guitar Man' is another one. I remember standing backstage with the Jesse Dayton Band one night in my CountryClub in 'Witte Paarden' with Bootleg-drummer Bart Faber there present as well. We were talking about music and especially Jerry Reed. This was back in 2002 or so. As i told Jesse Dayton i did have that particular Jerry Reed LIVE-album in my collection Jesse insisted on me searching it. While the bottle of Jim Beam (still here in my livingroom! (See pictures-page too) The very bottle, empty ofcourse!) went around and around the circle there where we shared some musical circle of our own backstage at Witte Paarden, i made Jesse Dayton a copy on a CD. There's one part on the album that we both liked very much: it is Jerry Reed talking about how he wound up on the Elvis-recording of 'Guitar Man'. Elvis couldn't get anyone to make it sound right and the story goes that he called out to his manager in total frustration:  'Get me Reed!'  ; and that's why both versions are guitar-wise pratically the same (Elvis' version and the original Reed-version, because it is Reed playing on both of them!) Later that week Bart and I were put on the questlist for the Jesse Dayton Band show at The Paradiso in Amsterdam and boy did they knock everybody out again! Thanks guys!

Being busy with my very own survival from time to time ( and yes, i do mean moneywise!) i also missed the passing of Texan troubadour RUSTY WIER. NO! Yet another one! First time i saw the man 'Wier' by name was on a record by Jerry Jeff Walker called 'A man must carry on' . One of my favourite songs in there turned out to having been written by somebody called Rusty Wier: 'Don't it make you wanna dance'. Wow! What a tune! A couple of weeks (maybe months?) later i found 2 albums by this Rusty Wier at a local secondhand recordshop: 'Black Hat Saloon' and 'Stacked Deck' . Woah! This is the real thing! Years later i laid my hands on a CD called 'Under my Hat' and for the first time i could listen to the original version of 'Don't it make you wanna dance' myself since it it NOT on the 2 albums i once found at this recordshop. His later LIVE-version with his band Texas Radio is something that you just HAVE to see (just in case you missed the link on the homepage of this website: here it is again! LINK!) Some legacy he has left us!

Blues... yes i've always been into blues, and country and folk and countryblues: so coming across JOHNNY JOYCE sooner or later is no suprise for some of you. Only this week i found out that he passed away too... some years ago already..... As a boy of maybe 16 i once hired an album at the library by this guy named Johnny Joyce, recorded it on a tapecassette and never found the record again... anywhere.... ever... Until! In the late 1990s i was visiting these recordfairs with my own stand of music and on one of these fairs where the business was very slow all day i found this very album in the merchandise of my neighbouring standholder. More than 20 years had passed looking for that very album: Joyce's Choice Mixture (1976) by Johnny Joyce! Just listened to it again earlier tonight and .... again it knocked me out.. as it has always done before.. Joyce's Choice Mixture is maybe the BEST Country/Folk/Blues-album of the entire 1970s! To me it is anyway! Those of you who know the album: feel blessed! Those who have never heard it in their lives: i pity you! (well, a little to say the least:)) )

Take care, i salute you all, i wish you all love and peace and hope! The Doc , jan.27, 2010.

(in the days to come i will add some more links to this one, but the first is already here: Johnny Joyce, many years after the legendary album of his CHOICE MIXTURE-album.   .........and the music they left behind.... yeah!) 

note added feb 20th, 2010: Today i found a  wonderful Wier-ballad on YouTube (link)

 and maybe the best cover to the BeeGees-classic 'To Love somebody'. Shows they are improvising, but that SOUND!  MAN!  Some voice he had!

story nr. 1: "LOST CRATE OF ALBUMS- a musical journey": with several links to the music written about.

 "Let's talk about music. There's just one problem with it. There's so much of it. It's hard to even know all of it that's in my own (little) private collection. It's roughly containing some 3000+ vinyl albums, 600+ CDs, numerous (as in countless) singles and cassettes... pfff. Last weekend i came across a 'presumed to have gone lost' crate of it in the backroom. They came to light again after taking the wooden winebox containing my collection of 45rpms to the livingroom on Christmasday to share some with my Family. 

Let me show you just a little of this marvellous universe called MUSIC and please DO use the links printed in grey! 

The first pack that catches my eye is a bunch of Italian pressings: 'La Grande Storia della Rock' (who doesn't know the cheap shit you could buy years ago, but it had some obscure stuff on them. I mean: Who gives you The Diamonds, The Five Americans??, Sam the Sham & The Pharaos, Billy Vera?? (Sorry folks, don't know him)  and The Manhattans on one record? Well, it's their series number 20! Or their number 39: one side is Bob Marley and the other is Billy Preston.... see what i mean? Combinations i still don't understand, probably never will... Turns out that i own the numbers: 2, 3, 4 (this one even twice??), 5, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, 25, 26, 32, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 57, 59, 61, 76, 78, 92, 93, 94, 96 and 100! Going through this crate... man.... what a universe of music in this crate alone! For the record: THE crate we're discussing here is not a part of my collection that made it to the livingroom yet.. Why? somebody tell me after reading the below.

After this Italian series i found various Flatt&Scruggs always remembered ofcourse for the Earl Scruggs-written bluegrass-classic of 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'   (found a YouTube-clip at the David Letterman Show featuring his son Randy Scruggs (acoustic guitar solo),  Albert Lee (red fender solo at the break), Steve Martin, Vince Gill (first electric guitar solo; white telecaster), Jerry Douglas (dobro), Marty Stuart (mandolin) etc.etc.on it!) (In the crate i found 'The Golden Hits' Gusto Records 1977 PO297 and 'Nashville Airplane' CBS somewhere 1970's with a major part of it being Bob Dylan-covers for example 'Like a rolling Stone' and  I'll be your baby tonight' years later some of the major hits for Robert Palmer (who's saying bluegrass is traditionalists' music? You missed the boat there! Music is first of all music! Right!) , one Gordon Lightfoot ('Don Quixote' Resprise 1972, MS2056) with his own version of 'Looking at the rain' later covered by Hank Williams Jr. Forever remembered in this world's memory for giving the world his songs like 'Early Morning Rain' covered by Peter,  Paul & Mary, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis amongst others and 'If you could read my mind' also covered hundreds of time from discostars to popartists. My personal favourite version of the song is by my alltime hero Johnny Cash on his posthumous album 'American Recordings V: a 100 Highways' . 

There are some Waylon Jennings -records (duplicates of ones already in my collection 'Greatest Hits, volume II' with ofcourse 'The Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard' of the series where he used to be the voice-over of The Balladeer and showed only his hands and guitar at the start of every episode, or was he allowed to only show that? and the classic 1978-album ' I've always been crazy' - see my personal LIVE FAVS for a superb Live-version of this one (link is here). Personal favourites on this one: a wonderful slow version of the Johnny Cash classic 'I walk the line' , the Merle Haggard standard 'Tonight the bottle let me down' and the Shel Silverstein miracle of 'Whistlers and Jugglers'  Used the words for a text of my own for Bootleg one day in the slowblues 'Streets of this town (seen all the sights)'  the music was a Bootleg-collaboration of that time. We played it a lot way back all over the country. One verse starts with it: 'whistlers and jugglers... i've seen them all..' 

 One more thing to the album's title song by The Hoss himself: there's a few of my favourite lines ever in this one: ' I'VE ALWAYS BEEN CRAZY BUT IT'S KEPT ME FROM GOING INSANE'  and another line: ' I CAN'T SAY I'M PROUD OF ALL OF THE THINGS THAT I'VE DONE, BUT  I CAN SAY I'VE NEVER INTENTIALLY HURT ANYONE' . God bless you Hoss! You wrote my line! ) Long time buddy Tony Joe White is on the album too ofcourse as he was on lots of albums recorded over the years by The Hoss picking and blowing harmonicas and in writing of the song 'Billy' here as A3. Their best collaboration will ofcourse always be the track for another Waylon-album, his duets-album 'Waylon and Company' where they wrote and sang together on 'So you want to be a cowboy singer' . Too perfect not to tell you all about it.  

There's some Johnny Cash, ofcourse (a double copy of 'Riding the Rails' and then some). His family is in the crate too: Rosanna Cash ('Right or wrong') and brother Tommy Cash (' Only a stone' )-albums. Further there's  Billy Charne (his first album with mostly solo-penned by this really named William Chernoff but all are originals, albumsleeve doesn't show a title like the labels do '..is looking up' on Sussex Records 1972 SXBS 7022, distribution Buddah Records. Beautiful and laidback music, some fine writing too: 'when i die i'm going to Heaven, because i've already been to hell and back again with you'  from A1 and a real sing-along on A3 'To-ma-ray Tom-o-ray') and later i did find some maybe interesting clips on YouTube such as this one, Tom Paxton (funny sleeve 'Peace will come') : it only shows the musicians on various tracks, NO titles?, one Jim Ringer 'Good to get home' with the frequently covered 'Old Father Time' on it , one Cowboy Copas! ('The Best of ..' on Gusto Records SLP-958 from 1975, a Nashville-based company then with obligatoire tunes like 'Alabam' and 'Ride in my little red wagon', one Buddy Williams (not Miller as i wrote before) (somebody help me out here! The bell doesn't ring all that clear now here in my head. An Australian pressing anyway (as in ofcourse!) called '....Remembers' on RCA-Victor Australia L-101594) 

Anyway the first ones i picked out to listen to were: Gloria Gaynor 'Never can say goodbye' MGM 1975 (SUPER!), Aretha Franklin 'Aretha' (1986), The Manhattans 'Love Talk' (CBS 1979), Paul Simon 'One Trick Pony' (movie-soundtrack 1980) the big hit was 'Late in the evening', The Best of Wilson Pickett, vol.II (Atlantic) with wonderful versions of 'Don't let the green grass fool you' and 'Sugar Sugar' and Steppenwolf 's 'Born to be wild' (Yeah!) Link here for another big hit, not on the album though.

'Ride a Country Road' by Roger Whittaker (YES: i like that one too! any problem with that? The sound of 'River Lady'.. out of words! Just Great!), Luther Allison 'Night Life' (Motown 1976), must have heard it before, but i can't remember. The Nightlife there is ofcourse the Willie Nelson-classic in a probably superb version. Kirsty MacCall is another one with 'Desperate Character' Who?? You know her, the main song on the album is 'There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis'. Suddenly i'm thinking of one of Waylon's songs on one of his last CD's 'Nobody knows i'm Elvis!' ...(Catch that?). 

Further: in the first hand i picked to listen to are: Donna Summer with the 1982-album produced by Quincy Jones. Some super songs on it i must admit now! Used to hate it back then, my sister had it, everybody had it! Haha, then i found a Bruce Springsteen song on it called 'Protection' . Wow! I'm sorry Donna, you're alright. Must have bought it somewhere along life's lane. Or, more likelly is a left over from recordfair-days; more to that in a later issue. 

Imagine even Hank ' I'm moving on ' Snow being in it with his only instrumental album 'Instrumentally Yours' (a near-mint USA-printing of 1979' AHL1-3511 (YES!), Richard Supa 'Tall Tales' (Yeah!, for all you Status Quo fans: he wrote 'Something about you baby i like' (not on this album though)) Some very nice tunes here.

Hey, there's The Pirates! Album: 'Out of their skulls' . Again i dare you my fellow-Status-Quo-fans: It's Mick Green 's band, former Quo bassplayer Alan Lancaster 's buddy. They wrote 'Hard Ride' (B-side to the single 'Whatever you want') for The Quo and some others! 'You don't own me' is on here, the same song The Quo recorded for their album 'Rocking all over the world' in 1977! And this Pirates-album?! Well...it's a LIVE one!  

STEVE YOUNG with 'Honky Tonk Man'  on RounderRecords3087! What a wonderful album! Superb own-penned and magnificant covers of 'Rambling Man' (Hank Williams) and The Band 's 'The night they drove old Dixie down ( Robbie Robbertson, yeah, frontman of this former Band ). Unfortunate the majority of the public just knows him through the song 'Seven bridges Road' he wrote for The Eagles. I've linked a stunning Steve Young himself-version for you here. Some voice, some talent, song star! To me anyway.

There's also a very disappointing album by Hot Chocolat, great hits on record they had, but an album? Yech! Their big hit 'Ýou sexy thing' is on this one' (Big Tree Records 1975) but i just couldn't stand listening to the shit before reaching A5, no sorries here; It's the last track on side A.

But then: TOOTS Thielemans!! 'Your Precious Love' (Polydor 1985), we've seen him in concert almost 2 years ago in our hometown Theatre, some highclass performance! (Another great performance is linked here ) Another great album i thought i had lost is: 'Thrills' by The Lost Gonzo Band, history lesson: Jerry Jeff Walker's backing band! ( example-link here, enjoy it! 'London Homesick Blues' a.k.a 'Back home with the Armadillo') featuring: Gary P. Nunn, Robert Livingston, John Inmon and others. MCA 1976 and on the label is doesn't side 1 or A, but This Side (for A) and The other side (for B), Yeah! Cool album for real music lovers! John Inmon sounds a little like my compadre Panama Red (oh man, i miss touring with ya, guitar bum!) on 'Relief'. Some song! Other fine tunes are: 'Wilderness Song' and 'Dead Armadillo' and the rest of the album ofcourse! So with this crate i even listenened to Sutherland Brothers & Quiver 'Reach for the sky' with their hit 'Arms of Mary' and a wonderful album by Juan Martin 'A Painter in Sound' on which this spanish guitarist shares his musical thoughts with us on various worldfamous paintings, such as: 'Selfportrait (to Gaugin)' by Vincent van Gogh and DaVinci's 'The Head of Christ' . 

I'll share some more memories with you readers later on! BECAUSE: It's nearly midnight and it's time to roll my eyewalls so more to that subject later! Goodnight!

Love, peace and hope to you all, The Doc (dec. 30, 2009) 

 

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