{"id":299,"date":"2006-01-24T16:19:53","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T23:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/01\/24\/rhinocast-18-country-rock-roll\/"},"modified":"2006-01-24T16:23:51","modified_gmt":"2006-01-24T23:23:51","slug":"rhinocast-18-country-rock-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/01\/24\/rhinocast-18-country-rock-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhinocast #18 – L&M"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well there’s just a little bit of magic in the country music we’re singin’
<\/em>"Pickin’ Up The Pieces"
Poco<\/p>\n

It started with the Byrds’ "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo".\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, country music infected rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 It was unforeseen.\u00c2\u00a0 And largely ignored.<\/p>\n

Until Crosby, Stills & Nash.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, rock music was smooth where it used to be rough.\u00c2\u00a0 It was down home where it used to be citified.\u00c2\u00a0 And the public embraced this sound.<\/p>\n

Simultaneous with CSN there was another country rock band, which is what we called them back then, Poco.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to tell you that Poco’s debut is as good as CSN’s, but it’s still a masterpiece, it’s still perfection.\u00c2\u00a0 But it didn’t connect with the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after a follow-up, which was an artistic disappointment, Jim Messina, a founder of the group with Richie Furay, decamped.\u00c2\u00a0 For the executive suite at CBS Records.\u00c2\u00a0 To become a producer.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when he met Kenny Loggins.<\/p>\n

Thirty odd years later, many people have a bad taste in their mouth regarding Loggins & Messina.\u00c2\u00a0 After breaking up with his newfound partner, Kenny Loggins became wimpier and wimpier.\u00c2\u00a0 And started testifying about his love life in public.\u00c2\u00a0 It was so saccharine that you wanted to puke.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there was the little matter of L&M’s biggest hit, "Your Mama Don’t Dance".\u00c2\u00a0 Made for Top Forty radio in an era when nobody listened to hit radio, the track was embraced by casual fans and played to death and if you play it right now I’m going to leave my house, track the sound down and SLEDGEHAMMER your stereo.<\/p>\n

So, L&M’s image has been tarnished.<\/p>\n

But hindsight doesn’t give you an accurate picture of what took place as a career developed.<\/p>\n

"Sittin’ In" wasn’t quite CSN’s debut, but it was perfectly formed.\u00c2\u00a0 In an era when it usually took three albums to get it together, to make a dent in the public consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 Somehow, Jimmy Messina started over and got it right.<\/p>\n

>From the opening acoustic guitar notes of "Nobody But You" you were hooked.<\/p>\n

Somehow, music has retreated to a no sun affair.\u00c2\u00a0 You wear black clothes.\u00c2\u00a0 Go to a dingy club at night.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s wrong with a little sun?\u00c2\u00a0 A little warmth?<\/p>\n

The debut was probably the best record, but every album through 1974’s "Mother Lode" contained gems.\u00c2\u00a0 And the latter was a minor masterpiece in its own right.\u00c2\u00a0 Hunkering down to get it right, being minor and personal, not swinging for the fences, Loggins & Messina generated an INTIMACY that is at the heart of great records.<\/p>\n

They made one more studio album and broke up.<\/p>\n

But last year they got back together.<\/p>\n

Ten years too late if you ask me.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody else reunited in the nineties and took as much money off the table as they could.\u00c2\u00a0 To get a boomer audience to go to a concert in the twenty first century you had to be a SUPERSTAR, like the Stones or McCartney…<\/p>\n

But, L&M hit the boards anyway.<\/p>\n

And not every gig sold out.<\/p>\n

But the show was pure magic.<\/p>\n

And a live album was released.\u00c2\u00a0 On Rhino.\u00c2\u00a0 And THEREFORE, I can play it on my podcast.<\/p>\n

I won’t say that every track on the new live CD, "Live: Sittin’ in Again at Santa Barbara Bowl", cuts the original.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, there’s magic.\u00c2\u00a0 In "Angry Eyes".\u00c2\u00a0 And, especially, "Same Old Wine".<\/p>\n

Don’t listen if you still have that bad taste in your mouth.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if you still harbor some warmth for that era, when country infiltrated rock, before Garth Brooks came along and the scenario flipped, and there was a little bit of rock and roll in the country, listen to this.\u00c2\u00a0 Not for me.\u00c2\u00a0 But for the music.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

You can listen to or download the podcast from Rhino’s site: http:\/\/rhino.com\/rzine\/rhinocasts\/index.lasso<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or you can subscribe in the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 Just search for "Lefsetz" and the Rhinocast will come up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

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Well there’s just a little bit of magic in the country music we’re singin’"Pickin’ Up The Pieces"Poco It started with the Byrds’ "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo".\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, country music infected rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 It was unforeseen.\u00c2\u00a0 And largely ignored. Until Crosby, Stills & Nash. Suddenly, rock music was smooth where it used to be rough.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-4P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}