{"id":3044,"date":"2010-06-12T05:09:54","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T13:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=3044"},"modified":"2010-06-14T03:39:17","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T11:39:17","slug":"i-cant-let-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/12\/i-cant-let-go\/","title":{"rendered":"I Can’t Let Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite Linda Ronstadt album is "Mad Love".\u00c2\u00a0 If for no reason other than her killer take on Mark Goldenberg’s "Justine".

This is the one about the girl<\/span>
The girl who came to stay<\/span><\/p>\n

Before she went to Broadway, before she sang standards, Linda Ronstadt went New Wave.\u00c2\u00a0 You remember New Wave, don’t you?\u00c2\u00a0 The analog of punk, absent safety pins through the face but still much simpler than corporate rock?\u00c2\u00a0 New Wave was about energy, and in many cases quality songwriting, and at this late date one can see Ms. Ronstadt’s take on it as its death knell.\u00c2\u00a0 Still…<\/p>\n

The highlight of the album was the three then unknown Goldenberg songs, "Justine", "Mad Love" and "Cost Of Love".\u00c2\u00a0 But there were three great Elvis Costello covers too: "Girls Talk" and "Talking In The Dark" and "Party Girl".\u00c2\u00a0 The obligatory slow burning soul cover for radio insurance, "Hurt So Bad", was superfluous, it added nothing to the Little Anthony original, but there was a strangely insightful cover of Neil Young’s "Look Out For My Love", which is every bit as good as Mr. Young’s version.<\/p>\n

That’s not all, Linda gave Billy Steinberg his start with "How Do I Make You".<\/p>\n

And "Mad Love" also included "I Can’t Let Go".<\/p>\n

If you’d asked me yesterday who did the original, I would have been stumped.\u00c2\u00a0 The version in my brain is Linda’s.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve got no complaints, it succeeds on its merits, it fires on all cylinders.\u00c2\u00a0 But last night on Sunset Boulevard, long after dark, I heard a progenitor, which was oh-so-familiar, yet different.<\/p>\n

I had to look at the readout, to make sure I was on the right satellite station.\u00c2\u00a0 This was another New Wave cover, right?\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t a sixties song.<\/p>\n

But it was.\u00c2\u00a0 It truly belonged on the Sixties on Six.<\/p>\n

And I’ve about given up listening to the station, hearing the same damn songs over and over again, I mean how many times can I hear the Four Seasons’ "Let’s Hang On" (and I like the Four Seasons!), but last night I discovered pure joy, the Hollies’ version of "I Can’t Let Go".<\/p>\n

Now the Wikipedia tells me there was even an earlier take.\u00c2\u00a0 By one Evie Sands.\u00c2\u00a0 Whose name I know, but couldn’t pick out of a lineup.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though her version percolated in the New York market, I was unexposed.\u00c2\u00a0 Just as I was to the breakthrough Hollies recording.<\/p>\n

Breakthrough?\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t even make the Top Forty.\u00c2\u00a0 It bubbled just below at number 42.\u00c2\u00a0 Reaching that peak position in May of ’66.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, how high could it fly being released on Imperial?<\/p>\n

So, I’m driving alone on the highway, positively elated.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s that simple sixties intro that began so many New Wave songs.\u00c2\u00a0 And the retro jangly guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 A sweet voice that seemed to be required for AM success holds dominion over the track<\/p>\n

And there was the original circular chorus, that causes you to nod your head and ultimately look to the sky and cry "I can’t let go!"<\/p>\n

That’s what I love about the modern era, everything old is new again.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like teenagers discover Led Zeppelin, I can be exposed to something that’s been right in front of me forever, that I somehow missed!<\/p>\n

\n
The Hollies<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
Linda Ronstadt<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And through the magic of the Internet, I can now listen to the true original:<\/p>\n

\n
Evie Sands<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s the same song, but it’s got that sixties girl group feel with a surf guitar, but hang in there, as the song unfolds you get snared.\u00c2\u00a0 And yes, it’s still got that incredible hook in the chorus.<\/p>\n

If only Lee DeWyze had looked back a bit further, instead of recording the U2 track, which lacks melody, is a record as opposed to a song, he’d recorded this Chip Taylor\/Al Gorgoni opus\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, that Chip Taylor, the one who wrote "Wild Thing" (the brother of Jon Voight!) <\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite Linda Ronstadt album is "Mad Love".\u00c2\u00a0 If for no reason other than her killer take on Mark Goldenberg’s "Justine".This is the one about the girlThe girl who came to stay Before she went to Broadway, before she sang standards, Linda Ronstadt went New Wave.\u00c2\u00a0 You remember New Wave, don’t you?\u00c2\u00a0 The analog of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-3044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-N6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3048,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions\/3048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}