There was an incident in the checkout line.  A woman wearing one of those convention badges was in a snit.  She accused the tattooed clerk of being "cavalier".  I wondered if she employed this description to show her superiority.  After all, it wasn’t his fault. At least that’s what he ultimately told me, five minutes later, after the manager had been called and had shepherded the customer away.  You see someone had forgotten to put down the stick.  He charged her for the next customer’s items, a man in such a stupor that he didn’t protest.  It just required a refund.  But that wasn’t enough for this woman.  She wanted to complain.

It had been a long day.

Yes it has.

And the only moment of bliss was in traffic when I heard Friend & Lover’s "Reach Out Of The Darkness" on XM.  What a great record.  And thereafter came the Beatles’ "She’s A Woman".  Never a favorite, the vocal was so over the top that if something this good was released today, eardrums would explode.  Why does everything today have to be beat-infused?  I thought canned drums were exhausted in the eighties.  I guess not.

Oh, I did hear one more great track.  Thompson Twins’ "Hold Me Now".  Can’t that guy come back?  Don’t tell me it was about my youth, I was already over thirty when the band broke.  Remember the album opener, "Doctor Doctor"?  I loved that album.

But I’m writing about none of the foregoing tracks.  I’m writing about Ry Cooder’s "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid".

After leaving Whole Foods, I couldn’t find the right song, I was pushing the buttons, and then Bill Fitzhugh took over on Deep Tracks.  He runs a show where it’s all about the segues, he makes the songs fit together.  He talked about growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, about Paul Simon recording at Malaco there, and said he was going to play a track from "Rhymin’ Simon", but not the one made in his hometown, and ultimately Ry Cooder’s cover of the traditional "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid".

Shit, I always thought it was an original.

Then again, "Paradise and Lunch" was the album I bought just after graduating from college.  I played it enough to know it, and then busted out of town, traveled west to start my new life.

But I never forgot "Jesus on the Mainline"…CALL HIM UP!

And "Married Man’s A Fool".

And the exquisite "Tattler", which you probably know from Linda Ronstadt’s subsequent take, which is an original, cowritten by Washington Phillips and producer Russ Titelman.

But the opener is "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid".

Actually, I saw Ry shortly thereafter.  At this brand new performance center in Jackson Hole.  Right on the ski resort’s property.  On a cold night ultimately spent in my tent in Yellowstone Park.  It was a disappointing show, Ry punched the clock, just another gig on the endless road.  And I’d stayed in town just to see him.

You see I was a fan.  Bought "Into The Purple Valley" because of a great review.  Not knowing what it was gonna sound like.  Like nothing else in the store, like nothing else I’d ever heard before.  I ultimately went back and bought the debut.  And every album thereafter for more than a decade.  Including "Paradise and Lunch", which is one of his absolute best.

So I’m cruising on the 405.  Listening to this Jesse Winchester song about a rhumba.  And then I hear that bass intro, and that slide guitar that sounds like a train coming down the track…

Tamp ’em up solid, so they won’t come down
Tamp ’em up solid, buddy, so they won’t come down

And suddenly a smile came to my face.  I parked at my destination, but couldn’t turn the radio off.

The radio…

Bill was playing the oldies. He’s lost in the classic rock era.  And there’s a lot more there than the hits you hear on terrestrial radio. Like Ry Cooder.  You see you didn’t need to have a hit to make it back then.

Baby, when you marry your railroad man
Every day’ll be payday, dollar bill in your hand

I’m not exactly sure what "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid" is about.  Lyrically, that is.  But I know what it’s about emotionally.  Survival.  Life. With a smile on your face.

Not everybody’s gonna be famous.  Not everybody’s gonna be a doctor or a lawyer.  But life unfolds nonetheless.  You get married, maybe divorced, but still the train keeps rollin’ down the track.

In my iTunes library I’ve got a live version of "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid".  Which is every bit as magical as the studio version.  Maybe even better.

As good as Ry was the night I saw him at the Country Club in Reseda, when John Hiatt opened up.

Some people are musicians.  Some people are stars.  Sometimes they’re both.  But if you’re solely the latter, famous for nothing, we may know your name, but we consider you part of the endless parade.  Whereas a great musician is like a virus, he infects you, gets inside, leaves a residue, akin to antibodies, that makes you a fan forever more.

Radio, a dedicated deejay and a talented musician.  An alchemy that had us addicted.

Tamp ’em up solid.

To listen to "Tamp ‘Em Up Solid", just Google the title.  Ry Cooder’s take will immediately come up in the results.  Click on the triangle and play it!