Issue 147

(WARNING: You may be exposed to adult content and humor of questionable taste.)

The late 1960s through the mid-1970s was a fertile time for recorded comedy, both stand-up and ensemble. There was even room for folk music comedy, as personified by The Limelighters and The Smothers Brothers. Comics such as Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, and Steve Martin had best-selling albums. Improv groups, of which The Committee was one, also proliferated.

The title of this article is not intended to imply that the outfits mentioned below are better or more “out there” than the Firesign Theatre. No comedic team that I know of ever surpassed the sophistication and cleverness of members Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Phil Proctor. There were, though, a number of other contemporaneous groups creating recordings that involved comedy outside the realm of stand-up. Everyone knows Cheech & Chong from that era, but I’m going to introduce you to three groups that, coincidentally, also start with the letter “C.”

The Conception Corporation featured Ira Miller and Murphy Dunne, two members of the famed Second City improv group. The Conception Corporation began in Chicago in 1969 when they added Howard R. Cohen and Jeff Begun. They released two satirical albums on the Cotillion label (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records) in the early 1970s. The first was called A Pause in the Disaster. A lot of the material is edgy and wouldn’t fly in these times of political correctness, but it was funny. Take, for instance, a game show concept where stereotypically white people had to answer questions about Blacks in an effort to win being “Black for a Day.” In a reflection of the times, there was also a healthy (?) dollop of drug humor, as evidenced in a short bit called “Acid Rescue Service” and the soap opera parody “Love of Grass” (a subsequent episode of which was included on their second, more ambitious album Conceptionland and Other States of Mind). “Sunday, Sunday” is a spoof of the old high-energy radio ads for drag races.

Conceptionland’s opening bit, “Rock and Roll Classroom,” is a rapid-fire run poking fun at many elements of school life. It ends with an impressive tongue twister about tie-dyeing a tie performed by “Nancy Fancy with Home Economics” (accompanied by jazz hi-hat percussion). “An Open Letter to the Youth of America” is delivered by a Walter Brennan sound-alike over patriotic music, complaining as codgers do (and I could be one) about the things young people do. The title track is a 25-minute Firesign Theatre-style journey through an imaginary amusement park. It’s hit-and-miss, but “Welcome to Bummerland/The Downer” is pretty funny, taking you on a coaster ride where you are bombarded with a number of life’s unpleasantries, such as slow diner service, insurance sales pitches, draft notices, bad haircuts, and so on. The inside flap of the gatefold cover is devoted to a Conceptionland Café menu with some pretty unusual entries. For example, “Egg Drop Soup” is followed by “Pants Drop Soup (with tail)” or “Planter’s Punch” followed by “Rabbit Punch.” (It was funnier at the time.)

The complete album is presented here, but you can easily find the individual cuts within.

The Congress of Wonders was a performing and recording duo out of the San Francisco Bay Area. They even opened at music venues for rock bands of the time, like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Howard Kerr (whose alias was “Karl Truckload”) and Richard Rollins (aka “Winslow Thrill”) released two albums on the Fantasy Label, also in the early 1970s. The first, Revolting, was a pretty solid effort, with standout tracks such as the Star Trek parody “Star Trip” (“These are the voyages of the Starship Intercourse, thrusting its way through space on another penetrating mission”) and “Pigeon Park,” where they envision Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh as old men reminiscing on a park bench in a future where all drugs are legal.

Their second album, cleverly (and appropriately) titled Sophomoric, did not hit my funny bone in the same way that Revolting did. It opens with the soap opera “Sylvia Davenport.” The longest track on the first side is “Cedro Willy,” the un-PC tale of an emotionally challenged orphan who rises to the presidency. The title is a play on the name of a Washington state community, Sedro-Woolley. “Health Man” is presented in three parts wherein the title character is trying to convince a wimpy guy to eat organic food. Side Two is largely consumed by the concept piece “Opheelthis Unchained,” which was recorded live in the studio with an audience. The Greek chorus parts are impressive in their rapid-fire unison delivery.

The Credibility Gap – Although no one from either of the two prior outfits went on to mainstream success, I’m guessing you’ll recognize three of the four members of the second incarnation of this ensemble: Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, David L. Lander, and Richard Beebe. Shearer is responsible for many of the voices on The Simpsons. Shearer and McKean are well known for movies like This Is Spinal Tap and other Christopher Guest parodies (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, etc.). McKean and Lander became TV’s Lenny and Squiggy from the sitcom Laverne & Shirley. The pair released a comedy/music album as Lenny and the Squigtones.

Los Angeles radio station KRLA was the birthplace of the group originally known as Lew Irwin & the Credibility Gap, with an almost entirely different cast. Irwin, John Gilliland, Thom Beck, Beebe, and folk singer Len Chandler did satirical spots on the station and released one album compiling those spots, 1968’s An Album of Political Pornography. Soon after, most of the members left the group. Irwin was replaced by Lander, Shearer replaced Beck, and the name was shortened to The Credibility Gap. In 1971, Shearer, Lander, and Beebe recorded the Capitol Records album Woodshtick and More (with an assist from McKean). One side is devoted to a sketch about a Woodstock-style festival for Catskill comedians, including musical bits. Side two is entitled “Earwitness News,” and features mock interviews, commercial parodies, and more.

McKean became a full-fledged member for their next album, 1973’s A Great Gift Idea, on the Warner Brothers/Reprise label. Interestingly, like Conceptionland, the inside cover is food-themed, describing the four members as though they were composed of the ingredients of deli sandwiches. Once again, some of the humor wouldn’t make it past the PC crowd, but the album is worth it just for the nearly 15-minute track, “Where’s Johnny.“ (In an obvious misprint, the LP label lists the track as clocking in at 4:45.) It’s a fully produced imagining of a The Tonight Show episode that got out of control. The impersonations are so good that it’s truly believable. Why the YouTube clip of this bit features the album cover artwork for the album Amazon Beach by the Kings is anybody’s guess.

On the so-so musical number “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Hair,” it’s noteworthy that the backing band features the talents of Little Feat’s Lowell George, Kenny Gradney, and Richie Hayward, along with jazz percussionists Harvey Mason and Milt Holland.

Their next album, 1977’s The Bronze Age of Radio, is a collection of bits originally done for Los Angeles radio. It was released on a smaller label, Waterhouse Records. Here, the standout track is a re-working of the old Abbott and Costello routine, “Who’s on First?” Shearer is a concert promoter trying to place a newspaper ad, much to the consternation of an ad rep played by Lander. There is a live video of this on YouTube, but, in my opinion, the audio-only version is tighter (the same can be said for Monty Python’s brilliant “Argument Clinic” routine).

All of these albums were staples of my comedy collection in the 1970s, and in revisiting them I noticed a number of ideas that were echoed on other albums. For example, The Credibility Gap’s “Earwitness News” contains an ad for a medication called “Dammitol,” as does a bit on The Congress of Wonders album Revolting. The latter is dated 1970 and the former is listed as 1971. They are not identical, but, chicken or egg? You be the judge.

Header image: The Credibility Gap, A Great Gift Idea album cover.

On September 7, 2021, Chrissie Hynde turned 70 years old. Granted, the lead singer, songwriter, and co-founder of the Pretenders was young when she started turning punk into something brainy, clever, and insightful, but it could be argued that she’s always been a very old soul. Maybe it was Hynde’s American influence on the British band, or maybe they recognized that there should be more to the genre; whatever the reason, the Pretenders brought rebelliousness in music to a whole new audience.

Ohioan Hynde moved to London in 1973, working for the music magazine NME (New Musical Express) and playing her own songs around town. In 1978 Anchor Records’ Dave Hill put together a makeshift band to record some of her tracks but urged her to form something more permanent. She teamed up with three Brits: guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers.

They had their first hit with the single “Brass in Pocket,” produced by Nick Lowe, but he wasn’t interested in working on the rest of their first album, Pretenders (1980). They ended up instead with Chris Thomas, whose wide-ranging background included the Beatles and the Sex Pistols; having him on board was surely an advantage. The album was No. 1 in the UK and did very well in America.

From those sessions comes “Porcelain,” originally the B-side to the single “Message of Love,” a track not included until the extended play version of the album in 1981. The first minute and a half of this four-minute song is entirely instrumental, proving beyond a doubt that everybody in that band had serious rock chops.

Pretenders II followed in 1981 to more acclaim, but things were not going well for the band on a personal level. Honeyman-Scott died of a drug overdose in 1982, right after they fired Farndon for drug use; Farndon would die a few months later. Those losses would probably have destroyed most bands, but since the Pretenders had always really been Hynde & Co., it was possible for her to replant the seeds and try to grow again.

Learning to Crawl (1984) is the result; Hynde got Robbie MacIntosh to play lead guitar, with Malcom Foster on bass. Before this was decided, however, she recorded what would be the album’s biggest single, “Back on the Chain Gang,” with guitarist Bill Bremner and bassist Tony Butler (from Big Country). Learning to Crawl turned out to be the Pretenders’ best-performing album in the US. One of the highlights is the rhythmic punch packed by “Time the Avenger,” originally the B-side to “Thin Line Between Love and Hate.”

The bands biggest singles, “My Baby” and “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” came from Get Close (1986). But once again, the commercial success belied real-life trauma for the band. Hynde decided that Martin Chambers’ playing had become so poor and uninspired that she needed to fire him. For this album, she brought in various drummers, including Simon Phillips and Blair Cunningham. Bassist Malcom Foster felt he and Chambers had had a musical rapport, so he quit and was replaced by Bruce Thomas from the Attractions, as well as some other players. A host of people came in to play keyboards and synthesizers, too, making this the band’s longest personnel list.

It might have been a cast of thousands, but it worked. The album’s non-single gem is the beautiful, exotic melody of “Tradition of Love.”

Packed! followed in 1990, really another Hynde solo project with session musicians. But Martin Chambers returned in 1994 for Last of the Independents, which made it feel more like the Pretenders. Hired hands included The Smiths’ bassist Andy Rourke and Tears for Fears’ keyboardist Ian Stanley. “I’ll Stand by You” was the album’s big single.

An advantage of having a big pool of artists to choose from was that Hynde could employ different styles for different songs. Guitarist Adam Seymour brought a grinding rockabilly sound with a touch of psychedelia to the hard-rolling “Rebel Rock Me.”

This process of Hynde mustering forces and laying down a new album continued every few years, with ¡Viva el Amor! in 1999, followed by Loose Screw in 2002. When Hynde was ready to launch Break Up the Concrete (2008), they put in some extra work to bring a multifaceted bonus feature to fans. They released several versions of the album, each with a new recording of an old Pretenders song re-imagined as country.

Chambers sat this one out, replaced by Jim Keltner, a session drummer with a stellar resume, having worked with the likes of Bob Dylan, three of the former Beatles, and Carly Simon. The politics of not using Chambers seems to be a complicated and ever-shifting story, but the short version is that Hynde wanted a sound he couldn’t deliver. Specifically, she wanted country. “Don’t Cut Your Hair” showcases Keltner’s touch.

For the next several years, nothing much happened with the Pretenders. Alone (2016) is another Hynde & Co. project, but when Dave Auerbach of the Black Keys is the one stepping in on guitar and keyboards, it’s going to be good. There’s also some nice work by Russ Pahl on pedal steel, and Richard Swift plays drums and other instruments, as he has done with various indie groups, including the Black Keys.

Best of all is an appearance by Duane Eddy, who helped define the reverberant electric guitar sound of late-1950s rock and roll. His contribution can be heard on “Never Be Together.” His distinctive sound is the perfect foil for Hynde’s deep, sultry delivery.

The Pretenders carry on, with Hynde the only through-factor. Despite a COVID-related delay, the band’s most recent album, Hate for Sale, came out in 2020. Chambers was back on drums for the first time since Loose Screw. The other personnel, besides Hynde, are James Walbourne on guitar and Nick Wilkinson on bass. Producer Stephen Street was back at the sound desk after a couple of decades away from the band.

Walbourne co-wrote all the songs with Hynde, and Street keeps the sound as realistic as possible. The only flight of fancy is the presence of the Duke String Quartet on the final track, “Crying in Public.” The sentimental harmonies, a nod to classic country ballads, support the unusually lyrical singing by Hynde. In other hands, this song would be impossibly maudlin; because it’s the Pretenders, you listen hard for the nuance and the micro-barbs, and you’re not disappointed.

I’ve always loved trains and music. When I was little, I thought Aretha Franklin was singing “Train train train/train of fools.” Back then, if you enjoyed model trains, you could cover their toy-like whirring by plopping a platter of train songs on your turntable. “Hear that lonesome whippoorwill/He sounds too blue to fly,” Hank Williams wailed while your Lionels raced in circles. “The midnight train is whining low/I’m so lonesome I could cry.”

Today, everything in the model-train hobby is digitized, even the audio. Realistic locomotive chuffing sounds are synchronized with the pace of the train. Livestock cars that are supposed to be carrying cows actually moo. If you run your train too fast, the cows moo in concern; take a turn at top speed and they really get aggravated. It’s the same with the clucking chicken car, the oinking pig car, and the breaking china car (the faster you go, the more merchandise you lose).

There is also a “haunted” boxcar. The manufacturers of these models claim they are digitized from “real-life recordings,” but in the case of the haunted boxcar I suspect some liberties were taken.

You may laugh at a boxcar full of angry ghosts, but this is a huge improvement over running your trains while listening to Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, or even Little Eva singing “Do the Loco-Motion.” These artists deserve our respect, but they’re not singing about actual trains. Nobody does, and with good reason. Who wants to wade through a lyric like this:

Man oh man, there goes a string of six-wheel SD90MACs
My train-spotter app says they’re heading for the Adirondacks
I’ve counted 30 cars of wheat and 60 full of red rocks
I spoke to a woman once, but she called the cops

(Record companies: If you’re digging this, contact my agent.)

So what then are train songs about? Is the best we can hope for the B.T. Express singing “Chug, chug, chug”? For the first time in the history of ethnomusicology, I present the four main categories of train songs. All aboard!

1. Sex

Just kidding. There are no train songs about sex. “The Train Kept a Rollin’” sounds promising, but the song is about being too shy to tell a woman you love her. Even Aerosmith, Lords of the Hair Dyes, couldn’t inject any canoodling into that one. The Psychedelic Furs’ “Into You Like a Train” is not a nod to the final scene of North By Northwest, when Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant embrace in their sleeping compartment and Hitchcock cuts to a train disappearing into a tunnel. The song is about loving you just the way you are.

The Monkees, of all people, came close. “Last Train to Clarksville” portrays life in the era before all passenger service was consolidated into Amtrak, when you and your lover could conveniently use passenger trains for one more night together, with “coffee-flavored kisses/and a bit of conversation.” Michelle Shocked’s “If Love Was a Train” might qualify given its opening line: “If love was a train I think I would ride a slow one/One that would ride through the night making every stop.” But any insinuation of sex stops there.

Generally, sex is what happens in the back of a car, though there is somehow no sex in Big Star’s “Back of a Car.”

2. Relationships

“Into You Like a Train” and “If Love Was a Train” fall into this category, as does Robyn Hitchcock’s “I Often Dream of Trains”: “I often dream of trains when I’m with you/I wonder if you dream about them, too.”

Relationship songs that feature trains are about the search for true love. Trains ride forever without ever arriving or don’t go anywhere because they have no engine. Most songwriters find other ways to illustrate this theme; trains are not hip enough for pop songs. Anyone old enough can buy a car, drive it, and play loud music; you can’t do that with a 200-ton diesel engine that only runs on rails. That’s why the first rock ’n’ roll song was called “Rocket 88” and not “3:10 to Yuma.”

3. Work/Life Balance

What wrecked Casey Jones’ train? His employer’s unreasonable demands to keep the trains running on time. Jones was driving far too fast with limited visibility. If only the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen had been strong enough back then to fight for mandatory rest breaks and safety inspections. Surely they would’ve staged an intervention for the Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones,” who wasn’t watching his speed because he was high on cocaine.

The best work/life balance train song is either “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” or the Folksmen’s “Blood on the Coal,” featuring the sad yet inevitable fate of the Irishman named Murphy, the ultimate work martyr.

4. Metaphors

Trains are always hauling people off to the afterlife. There are not one but two such songs on Johnny Cash’s posthumous album, American V: A Hundred Highways. One for his late wife, June (“On the Evening Train”), and one for Johnny:

Take me to the depot, put me to bed
Blow an electric fan on my gnarly old head
Everybody take a look, see I’m doing fine
Then load my box on the 309

Trains can stand in for a desire to escape (Stan Ridgway’s “God Lives in a Caboose,” Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Cross-Tie Walker”) or the fear that there is no escape (Bruce Springsteen’s “Downbound Train”). Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” is the standout in the metaphor category. It is at once a novel about the people who ride trains and a meditation on what this particular train – or rather, this route, because the equipment doesn’t matter – means to America.

The O’Jays’ “Love Train” may not boast a metaphor, but it is easily the happiest train song of them all. Join hands. Don’t you know that it’s time to get on board?

Visit Wikipedia for a list of the 1,000 Greatest Train Songs You Should Hear Before You Die.

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Brett Sayles.

In Part One (Issue 146), we covered the fundamentals of what Roon is and how it works, and the advantages it provides in organizing and accessing digital music. Part Two explores the particulars for getting the best out of a Roon-based audio system.

Where to Put Roon

For full functionality, Roon requires internet access and a robust LAN (local area network). Roon is not a computer audio system; it’s a network audio system. As such, Roon’s capabilities are limited outside of the home. It’s not the solution you would turn to for car audio, background music while traveling or tunes at the workplace. Although Roon Labs has plans to add support for remote access, for now, Roon belongs at your primary residence.

A complete Roon installation comprises multiple devices connected to a single LAN. Central to this installation is a software component Roon Labs calls Core, the coordination point for all other devices. Each Roon subscription is associated with precisely one Core. A Roon system often has multiple Outputs and Controls. Outputs are audio components with a LAN connection that enables Core to stream music to them. Controls are the software applications you and your family use to interact with Roon. Roon Labs offers free Roon Remote apps for Android and iOS and the Roon desktop app for macOS and Microsoft Windows.

Roon provides two different pieces of software that can serve as the Core for your installation: Roon desktop and Roon Server. The desktop app has an all-in-one mode, providing Core, Output, and Control. While this is handy for a quick evaluation or demo of Roon’s features, permanent installations should always separate these functions onto dedicated networked devices for best performance.

Roon Server is the preferred software to use for Core. Roon Labs recommends an Intel Core i3 or better CPU and 4 to 8 GB of RAM. The operating system and Roon Server must be installed on an SSD (Solid State Drive) because accessing Roon’s database requires lots of non-sequential disk access. A mechanical hard disk can’t keep up. Roon Labs provides builds for later macOS and Windows releases, Linux, and QNAP and Synology NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices.

While you can install Roon Server on any system that satisfies the minimum requirements, Roon Labs also offers Roon OS, a highly optimized solution for running Roon Server. Roon OS provides the best experience by far. But, it is only formally supported by Roon Labs on a particular kind of computer called the Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing). Furthermore, only specific NUC model numbers are supported.

To simplify things for Roon subscribers, Roon Labs offers the Nucleus and Nucleus+ servers, based on Intel Core i3 and i7 NUCs, respectively. These come pre-loaded with Roon OS and offer integration with Control4 smart home automation systems. The only downside to Nucleus/Nucleus+ is their relatively high cost: $1,459 for Nucleus and $2,559 for Nucleus+. These prices do not include an optional internal SATA SSD for music storage. However, although they may seem expensive, Nucleus/Nucleus+ offers good value for money for those who desire a beautiful turnkey solution or require Control4 integration.

For those with experience assembling computer hardware, Roon Labs offers a DIY option to run Roon OS that they call ROCK, or Roon Optimized Core Kit. The online Roon help pages provide detailed instructions covering what parts to buy, assembly, BIOS settings, and Roon OS installation. Doing a ROCK build requires access to a second computer, a USB thumb drive, a small Phillips-head screwdriver, and a bit of patience. Apart from cosmetic differences and no Control4 integration, a ROCK build provides an equivalent experience to Nucleus/Nucleus+.

Finally, a few third parties offer servers that can function as your Roon Core. Typically, these run Roon Server alongside a range of other software, providing functionality that you may or may not need. When considering these solutions, be aware that features outside the Roon ecosystem may not interoperate with your other Roon devices, adding potentially needless complexity to your network audio system.

In summary, Roon is a network audio system for your home. Core is your music mainframe, and Control apps are terminals to interact with and play your music to one or more Output zones. Core, Control, and Outputs communicate over your home LAN, a critical part of any Roon system.

How to Deploy Roon Right

Roon’s vision from the beginning has been, “Roon Plays with Everything.” While not fully realized, Roon Labs has been getting closer, announcing new partnerships and integrations every month or so. As a result, there are countless ways to go about building a Roon system. It could take years for you to explore a large enough cross-section of the available options to identify the best fit for your needs and expectations. I’m hoping that what you learn from this article will save you much of that time, but I’m coming at this from a disadvantaged perspective; I don’t actually know your requirements! There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but I will provide generally applicable guidance and share specific examples along the way. Armed with this information, you should be able to deploy a Roon system in your home that amazes and delights you and your family.

The Network is the Computer^®

Now a registered trademark of Cloudflare, this phrase was first coined in 1984 by John Gage of Sun Microsystems. This network-centric thinking applies equally to a reliable and performant Roon deployment: call it, The Network is the Audio System. After reading over 37,000 posts on Roon Community, I’ve concluded that home LAN issues are the root cause of most Roon performance issues. My advice is to think of your LAN as a component in your audio systems and invest appropriately.

I’m not saying that you have to spend $1,000 on the latest audiophile switch or linear power supply for your router in order to obtain reliability and satisfying sound quality. But, you need to put more thought into how your home network is set up than you did before Roon, to get the best results. Core, high-performance Outputs, and network-attached storage for music files require a wired Ethernet connection to function reliably. One of the reasons for this is that, unlike DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) and most other streaming protocols, Roon Core sends uncompressed audio to your Output zones. This minimizes processing on Output devices, but requires more bandwidth and lower latency.

In the US, it’s common for internet service providers (ISPs such as AT&T and Comcast) to provide a Wi-Fi router that also has three or four Ethernet switch ports. This probably won’t be enough for your network audio system. The quality of this “free” internal switch is also questionable, so one of the first components that you should acquire for your Roon deployment is a good Ethernet switch. Select a unit with more ports than you think you’ll need. Unless you have significant experience in managing network devices, stick with a simple, unmanaged switch like the Netgear ProSafe GS116, which requires no user configuration and sells for around $80. Connect one port to your ISP’s router and use the others for Core, Outputs, your NAS, and any other devices that support a wired connection. If you have a separate Wi-Fi router, connect this switch to that instead. This simple network topology will provide years of reliable service with minimum fuss.

While many houses and apartments are prewired with CATV (Cable TV) jacks, few have wired Ethernet jacks positioned at every location where you’d like to set up an audio system. If you own your home or rent from an understanding landlord, this can easily be solved. Hire a low-voltage wiring specialist (e.g., alarm and security camera installers, CATV installers, or home theater integrators). Ask them to pull in-wall networking runs from your switch to each location where you wish to have a Roon Output that supports high-resolution formats. Expect to pay around $150 per run, give or take, depending on location. This may sound expensive, but I promise it will be among the best audio investments you’ll ever make.

Suppose your landlord does not allow you to install in-wall wiring. In that case, a modern Wi-Fi 6 mesh network, like the Netgear Orbi, TP-Link Deco, or Asus ZenWiFi may provide acceptable results. Avoid solutions with fewer than two wired Ethernet ports per node as you’ll need those to connect wired devices, like Core and Outputs. The difference between a mesh network and traditional Wi-Fi extenders is that the nodes use a dedicated high-speed Wi-Fi 6 backhaul connection. Wi-Fi 6 supports close to wired network speeds; however, latency is higher.

Another option for those unable to run wired Ethernet to their audio systems is MoCA 2.5. This technology leverages existing (and often unused) CATV jacks to form a wired network. It’s expensive, more complicated to set up, and latency is about 10 times higher than wired Ethernet. Still, if you happen to have CATV jacks near your equipment, it’s better than Wi-Fi and may outperform mesh solutions if you have a large home.

Powerline networking (which uses a home’s AC electrical wiring to carry data), Wi-Fi extenders, and Wi-Fi, in general, may be satisfactory for other networked home appliances and applications. However, they rarely provide a good experience with Roon. You will never regret installing wired Ethernet runs where that’s possible. Although performance and reliability are inferior to wired Ethernet, MoCA 2.5 and Wi-Fi 6 mesh networks, when properly implemented, are adequate for Roon to function reliably. Invest in your home network as you would any other part of your audio system. You’ll be rewarded with more listening time because you’ll spend less time troubleshooting!

Your Music Mainframe

As mentioned before, each Roon subscription is associated with one Core. The association is formed by logging in to Core using the Control app. Avoid using the computer that runs Core as an Output when sound quality is a priority. Roon Core is an unapologetic CPU hog. The resulting elevated RFI, EMI, fan noise, and ground-plane contamination make such a setup inhospitable for a downstream DAC. The ideal deployment has only two cables connected to the computer running Core: power and Ethernet. No display, keyboard, mouse, and, especially, no DAC. Despite its beautiful casework, Nucleus is not an audio component. It’s a server appliance and should be treated like one.

The best software to use for Core is Roon Server. This application has no user interface, making it ideal for running on an appliance, like Roon’s own Nucleus/Nucleus+ or their DIY ROCK solution. You can also run Roon Server in the background on any PC, Mac, or Linux computer that meets the hardware requirements. However, Roon OS on the Intel NUC platform offers the best experience. Don’t waste time as I did. Buy a Nucleus or build a ROCK system (it’s easier than you think). If Nucleus is too expensive and you’re not comfortable assembling a NUC for ROCK, find someone to build one for you. If you can’t, let me know, and I’ll help.

Plan for a wired Ethernet connection to Core. Physically, the best place for Core is next to your router or that Ethernet switch I recommended. Because the only user interface on the Nucleus or ROCK is a power button, you won’t need a keyboard, mouse, or display. Connect the power and Ethernet, and you’re good to go.

Regarding power, Core must be powered on for you to use your network audio system, because everything flows through it. You may be concerned about operating costs, but let me assure you they are minimal. My 7th gen i5 NUC draws about 10 watts. If I left it running 24/7, monthly power consumption would only be 7.3 kWh. Even with California’s exorbitant prices for electrical power, this works out to $2.70 per month or $32.50/year. Of course, it’s good to conserve electrical energy, and doing so is simple. Just press the power button at the end of your last listening session, and the NUC will gracefully shut down in seconds. Another press in the morning, and you’ll be up and running nearly as fast since Roon OS boots very quickly.

Sound quality should not be a consideration when selecting a device to run Core. When all Outputs are connected via your home LAN and Core is located away from your listening room, all solutions sound precisely the same. Don’t let anyone, especially manufacturers, tell you otherwise. While they all sound the same, they do not provide the same experience. The more complex the operating system upon which Roon Server is run, the more downtime you’ll experience for updates, reboots, maintenance, and troubleshooting. The operating system also competes with Roon Server for hardware resources, impacting responsiveness and even reliability. Roon Server is a minimal operating system that Roon Labs built from the ground up to provide a stable and highly optimized platform for running Roon Server. This is why Roon OS offers the best and most appliance-like experience.

Network Audio Components

If you’ve followed my advice so far, you won’t have a powerful computer spewing RFI and EMI into your audio rack or listening environment. Core is located elsewhere, so you now need audio components to bridge your home LAN and audio systems. Roon Labs aims to support all network audio devices, but not all devices are supported equally. For zones that you use for background music, Apple AirPlay, Google Chromecast, and SONOS protocols will be fine. However, for zones where you do serious listening, you’ll want to be a bit more choosy.

Roon’s own R.A.A.T. (Roon Advanced Audio Transport) streaming protocol offers the best quality and performance in a Roon system. “Roon Ready” certified devices use this protocol effectively, providing responsive playback controls and enhanced feedback in the Roon Control apps. Unfortunately, some manufacturers have been announcing “Roon Ready” certification prematurely. Always check the Roon Partners page before buying. You will also see “Roon Tested” devices on this page. Many of these components are not network-enabled, like USB DACs. Others offer network audio functionality using protocols other than R.A.A.T. Avoid the latter for your primary systems since they will have limited capabilities and format support.

The range of network audio components is broad, but all can be described by their inputs and outputs. Inputs include mediums and protocols. For reliability, wired Ethernet (or fiber) is the preferred medium for Roon, but Wi-Fi sometimes works well enough. Roon does not support Bluetooth. Input protocols include R.A.A.T., AirPlay, Chromecast, SONOS, and others. Outputs can be USB and S/PDIF to feed an external DAC. Some devices also offer analog outputs or amplified outputs to drive passive loudspeakers. A few are networked active speakers with Roon support baked in, like the KEF LS50 Wireless II.

Which type you choose depends on your existing system and requirements. As with any audio component, the more integrated functions a device has, the less flexible it will be when it’s time to upgrade. If you have a DAC that you like, a simple network audio transport, like the ZEN Stream from iFi Audio or the Allo USBridge Signature Player, can be a good option. If you later find a DAC that you like better, you can replace it and use the same transport. The reverse is also true. However, like the SONOS Five, all-in-one components are ideal for background music and easier to move around. These are just a few examples; new products are announced regularly on the Roon Blog.

Controls – There’s an App for That

You almost certainly won’t have to purchase a new device as the Control surface for interacting with Roon. Most reasonably current smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers can function as Controls. For Android and iOS tablets and smartphones, install the free Roon Remote app via the app store for your device. Download and install the Roon desktop app directly from roonlabs.com on each of your computers that run Microsoft Windows or Apple macOS. I encourage you to install the Roon Control apps on every compatible device you own so that everyone has convenient access to music in the home.

While Core and Outputs work best with a wired network connection, Controls almost always use Wi-Fi. It’s essential to ensure that the wired and wireless devices that make up your Roon system are all on the same network. The device discovery protocols that Roon uses do not work well on segmented networks. If you use separate Wi-Fi access points, they should be configured to function as bridges to your wired LAN. You can verify this by reviewing the IP addresses assigned to Core, Outputs, and Controls. The common format of an IP address is four numbers, separated by periods. By default, the first three numbers represent the network address. These three numbers must be identical for every device in your Roon deployment. Core will have trouble discovering and communicating with any device that has a different network address. How to display IP addresses varies, so consult your product documentation or do a Google search if you’re unsure where to look.

You’ll mainly use Roon’s desktop app or Roon Remote to control playback; however, Roon Labs also supports third-party extensions. One of particular note is rooDial, a product offered by Dr. Carl-Werner Oehlrich for a modest fee. This solution enables a Microsoft Surface Dial to function as a physical volume knob for Roon. Press on the top of the dial for play/pause and skip functions. Picking up a tablet to pause, skip a track, or adjust the volume is an unwelcome distraction from that blissful semiconscious state associated with long listening sessions. In contrast, you can operate rooDial without opening your eyes, so nothing takes you out of the music. I regard rooDial or one of Dr. Oehlrich’s other control extensions as an essential part of the Roon experience for serious listeners.

Summary and Resources

Roon is not just another music server or player. It’s an online metadata service and device ecosystem for networked audio in the home. Its search, discovery, and recommendation features make approachable the vast music libraries offered by Qobuz and TIDAL. Expanded and hyperlinked credits, reviews, and bios maximize the pleasure you derive from your existing music library. Roon provides a consistent user interface for playing music on devices with different capabilities. Core and your home LAN are the foundation of your Roon experience. Get these two parts right, and you’ll spend more time enjoying your music.

To learn more about Roon, check out these helpful resources:

• Roon Help – Getting Started
• Roon Knowledge Base
• The Roon Online Community
• Roon Labs’ Recommendations for achieving the best Sound Quality
• Roon Nucleus User’s Manual
• Roon Optimized Core Kit (R.O.C.K.) Guide

Detail of the front panel of a 1970s MAC-1900 receiver, made by McIntosh. Who needs surround sound when you've got switching options like these?

MAC-1900, rear view. For a look at the front panel, check out Issue 139's Audio Anthropology column. MAC-1900 photos by Howard Kneller, courtesy of The Audio Classics Collection.

What, no VTA adjustment? And who says one speed is all you need? Columbia Records ad, 1950s.

My parents actually owned a 4-channel system in the 1970s. Quadraphonic Buyers Guide, 1974.

I know, I’m pretty much late to the party with regard to the Steven Wilson remix/remasters of classic rock and prog titles, many of which have been out for a decade or longer. But having discovered my first few (mostly Yes albums) late last year and early this year, I’ve been on the hunt in an attempt to try and track down as many of his titles as I can find that really interest me. Lately that focus has been on Wilson’s 40th Anniversary reissues of prog masters King Crimson, and this issue, I’m talking about my experience with just one of them that’s near and dear to me, 1974’s landmark album, Red.

In my article in Copper Issue 138, where I rambled on about my love for the band Yes, I mentioned that back in the day I’d recently gotten an el-cheapo car cassette player for my ’69 Volkswagen station wagon, and had started picking up $3 cassettes at the local Turtles’ Records and Tapes – which had a pretty vast selection of tapes that were only a few years old for not too much cash. I didn’t have an abundant supply of tapes at the time, but in 1976 dollars, $3 was about half what I was then paying for LP’s, so the price seemed very reasonable! My only real working knowledge of King Crimson was their seminal debut record, In The Court of the Crimson King. But when I saw a $3 cassette copy of Red on the table at Turtles, I thought the cover looked really cool, so how could I possibly go wrong? The pink molded cassette that I’d previously bought for Yes’ Close To The Edge was cool, but the cassette for Red was even pinker, which I thought was very hip.

The off-brand car cassette player I’d picked up at the local Western Auto for $60 (rather a lot in 1976 dollars) probably only output 10 watts at 10 percent distortion. Playing into the super-low-fi stock Volkswagen speakers, it could barely output a decent level of sound without any distortion, but it was enough to let me know that I was definitely digging the sounds of Fripp, Bruford, Wetton, and company. My home system at the time was a JC Penney MCS setup (made by Panasonic) that was a customer return I’d bought for pennies on the dollar at a local JCP distribution and liquidation center. It only put out about 20 watts at 0.5 percent distortion, but at least at home, my 18-year-old self was getting a bit more of the musical picture. Hearing “Starless” for the first time was mind-blowing; it’s definitely among the greatest twelve-minute cacophonies of sound in all of progressive rock!

When King Crimson’s Red was released on October 6, 1974, Robert Fripp had already made public the news of the band’s demise in an interview in New Musical Express in England, where Fripp told the magazine that King Crimson was “over for ever and ever.” And the public’s reception to the new album was chilly, to say the least, with Red only reaching No. 45 on the British charts for one week, then unceremoniously dropping off for good. Fripp was burned out musically, and Red’s poor chart performance further fueled his disdain for the band. In a 1979 interview with Jean-Gilles Blum that appeared in Best, Fripp stated, “I decided it was time to stop…I was becoming more and more frustrated. Crimson had stopped evolving both in a commercial and musical sense. This reflected a lack of strength in the music. If our music had been incredibly good, we would undoubtedly have had a huge success. Such was not the case.”

At the point when King Crimson convened in London’s Olympic Studios in July of 1974, the band was already breaking apart. One day prior to the beginning of the sessions, Fripp uncharacteristically took a day trip into the countryside, which he has said opened his eyes to everything he’d been missing in life. Earlier in the year, in January and February, Crimson had recorded Starless and Bible Black (which commercially was also coolly received), then immediately launched a European tour. The band followed that with an American tour, then back to Britain for rehearsals of material for the upcoming album, and straight back to America for another leg of the tour. Violinist David Cross hung around to lay down the basic tracks in the studio for “Starless,” and then split – he didn’t even hang around for the cover photo shoot, which only featured the trio of Fripp, Wetton, and Bruford. The only other track to feature David Cross, “Providence,” was a live improvisation recorded in concert a few weeks earlier and then edited for the LP (I didn’t know that until I got this set). For most of the sessions, King Crimson was indeed a trio, and only weeks after the conclusion of the recording, the group had disbanded. Fripp threw several options out to Wetton and Bruford, all of which included Fripp taking at least a year off, and all were ultimately rejected. King Crimson appeared to be over, at least this version; in actuality, the band would simply remain dormant for almost seven years.

While Fripp’s lack of enthusiasm for Red and that particular incarnation of King Crimson was clearly evident (he has even commented that at the time, he didn’t know where the album was going musically), that wasn’t necessarily the case with everyone in the band. In Will Romano’s prog rock opus, Mountains Come Out Of The Sky, John Wetton commented about the album sessions: “Bill Bruford and myself knew exactly where it was going. We took the front seat on it, and pushed for that very up-front…in-your-face guitar [sound]. Yeah, definitely. We did that. You can hear it from the first track. This band is not f*cking about.” Bruford and Wetton were still very musically driven to continue post-Crimson, and both worked on a number of side projects over the next few years. The two of them eventually came together with Allan Holdsworth and Eddie Jobson to form what many consider to be the first prog supergroup, UK. All while Fripp’s “permanent” sabbatical from music continued through the late seventies.

But despite Red’s initial poor sales, fans soon warmed to the album, and critics have since waxed poetically about the record, with many listing it among the very best progressive rock albums ever, and some even listing it among the best albums of the decade. Pitchfork ranked Red  No. 72 on their best albums of the Seventies list, stating that, “For a band that was very obviously about to splinter, King Crimson’s music sounds remarkably of a single mind. On Red, they achieved a remarkable balance between bone-crushing brutality and cerebral complexity.” The album’s closing track, “Starless,” is considered by many to be the finest King Crimson song of all time. The album’s influence on future generations can’t be overstated, with even Kurt Cobain listing Red as one of his primary influences while crafting Nirvana’s guitar sound.

The Steven Wilson 40th Anniversary Remix/Remaster

The Steven Wilson remix/remaster of Red is, in my humble opinion, nothing short of miraculous when compared to the catalog releases, which all still strike me as a touch strident. That even goes for the 30th Anniversary release, which was probably the best digital version available prior to this set. As I mentioned in the intro, I’m late to the Steven Wilson King Crimson reissues, so with rare exception, the Blu-ray sets are long gone. So, my only choice ended up being the DVD-Audio/CD version. But it essentially boils down to personal preference, and in my situation: 1) there are zero differences in sound quality between the Blu-ray and DVD-Audio versions; 2) I don’t really do surround sound, so I can’t point to any advantages between either version from that angle; 3) I can play back DVD-Audio with my Yamaha universal player, and I know that not everyone can; and, 4) I’m mostly interested in ripping the 24/96 tracks to my music server, so the actual disc medium is much less important to me.

The CD disc contains the Wilson remix/remaster in 16/44.1 sound with three bonus tracks, which include trio band versions (without all the overdubs) of the title track “Red” and an instrumental of the album’s second track, “Fallen Angel.” It’s pretty amazing how different the track presents itself without John Wetton’s vocal performance! The CD concludes with the extended version of the track “Providence” (from the live compilation box set The Great Deceiver) which adds around two minutes to the total runtime. It also really changes the overall feel of the tune, which alternates between what I call “chamber prog” and full-out Fripp at his distorted metal best. Whereas the original fades out quietly, the full version rams back in at full bore one more time before reaching a conclusion. Hearing this was like, “where have you been all my life?” – it’s definitely a must-hear for Crimson fans. And the recording is so good, that for all these years, I had no idea it was sourced from a live recording until the fans roared out in approval at the end of the extended version! The sound of the entire CD is superlative, and it’s really great to have for listening in my car.

For me, the DVD-Audio disc is the real gem here; it not only provides all the previously mentioned tracks in 24/96 MLP Lossless stereo sound, but adds an additional bonus track. This is a second live tune taken from The Great Deceiver box, “A Voyage to the Center of the Cosmos,” which is another astonishingly good Crimson instrumental that I was completely unfamiliar with. Both live tunes were played by the Red-era version of the band on tour just prior to entering the recording studio. David Cross’ violin work really shines here; he proves what an integral part of the band’s sound his excellent contributions were during this iteration of King Crimson. The DVD also includes MLP Lossless 5.1 tracks for everything above except the trio version of “Red.” Most of the content is also available in 24/48 PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 tracks, and there’s also some video content (all with mono soundtracks). The four videos were taken from a French television broadcast, and the video’s not superb, but definitely watchable, while the mono sound is acceptably good. It’s just really great to be able to see some footage of Fripp and the band live!

I can only speak for the stereo content of the discs under review, but the sound quality is absolutely superb. I only paid $22 for the set, and it’s easily worth every penny. The mid-Seventies-era Crimson only recorded three albums, and that seems to have set a pattern for Fripp: his next incarnation of the band would only record three albums as well. Regardless, what amazing musical documents they all are! The 40th Anniversary remix/remaster of Red shows Steven Wilson’s craft in the studio – and King Crimson’s musical prowess – at their very best, shedding new light on this version of KC at every turn. Very highly recommended!

Discipline Global Mobile (DGM)/Panegyric, DVD Audio/CD set

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Masahiro TAGAKI.

[The first installments of this series appeared in Issues 143, 144, 145 and 146 – Ed.]

As the midday heat passed, it was time to head back to Spearfish. While gearing up, Spider insisted on riding my bike the half-mile to the pavement, “just to see what it feels like.”

I insisted he wouldn’t.

He swore that if anything went wrong, he’d pay for it. And he’d let me ride his bike, which was a nice, late-model Low Rider.

Chip assured me that Spider was an experienced rider, and that if anything should go wrong, he was “good for it.”

“Only to the pavement,” I emphasized, “then we swap back.”

I got on his lumbering Harley and followed Chip and Candy to the pavement. When we got there, Gimp and all the other guys pulled up behind us, but Spider was nowhere to be seen. A moment or two later, we turned around and headed back to look for him.

We found my BMW lying on its side with a crushed fairing and tail section. Spider was leaned over a fallen tree trying to catch his breath.

The dust was still settling as we arrived. Spider got up and looked dazed. His beanie helmet and chin were scuffed, but otherwise he seemed OK. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t need a single word of reproach.

KP, the other lieutenant of the renegades, picked up my bike and put it on the center stand. It was a sad sight. My formerly pristine R90S was not pretty anymore. Spider had obviously endoed the bike. The headlight and fairing were smashed along with the instruments. The tail rack and seat cowling to which the rack was attached were bent. The front fender and the lid of one of the saddlebags was cracked. The right valve cover was gouged. Surprisingly, the tank was unscathed.

Candy put her hand on my shoulder and led me to a nearby picnic table while Chip approached Spider. They conversed for a long time. Chip was doing most of the talking and Spider repeatedly nodded his head in agreement while he wiped the dust off my bike with his bandana. Chip started it and rode to the road and back. Then he walked towards me.

“I’m real sorry this happened, Montana, but we’re going to make it right. The bike seems to be rideable so we’re going to ask you to take it back to camp. Then we’ll load it onto the bus. In the morning, Spider will take it to the BMW dealer in Rapid City. He’s going to tell them to fix everything that needs fixing and give them his credit card. He’ll lend you his Low Rider for the rest of the rally so you don’t miss anything.”

I liked the sound of all that. I knew that it would be a huge sacrifice for Spider to let go of his machine for a few days. These guys identify with their bikes like CHP officers do.

Despite the damage, the bike seemed to handle fine on the ride back to Spearfish City Park. There was no wobbling or pulling to the side. Oil was spritzing over my boot from the damaged valve cover, but that was about the only mechanical problem I could detect. I determined that, if necessary, the bike could make it home in its current condition. That was a great relief.

When we got back to camp, several tow truck drivers were still loading up the bikes damaged by the tree branch that had fallen on them earlier in the day [see Part Four of the story in Issue 146 – Ed]. Their owners were on hand to supervise. The lawyer (who had appeared on the scene after the accident) and his perky assistant were filling out papers for each owner. I identified with them now that I also had a damaged machine.

I’d barely parked my bike when the two lieutenants, Spider and KP, rolled it into the bus and strapped it down. Then we all walked to town for refreshments. Spider sat next to me and apologized with humility and sincerity. That couldn’t have been easy for a guy like him, and I told him I appreciated it.

Red was seated with us at the table. He commented, “Hey, sh*t happens.”

“I know Red, but why does it have to happen hundreds of miles from home?”

“Could have been much worse man; at least Spider’s not dead. Guess his number wasn’t up yet.”

“Guess your number isn’t up either Red, it’s a miracle your neglected bike hasn’t dumped YOU into the dirt.”

The listeners chuckled knowingly.

“Let me explain something to you Montana. By the time I hit 13, my father had died from stomach cancer, my brother from wounds he got in Vietnam, and my mother from alcoholism. I’m 39 and none of them lived long as I have. People criticize my lifestyle all the time, but I’m still here. When your number’s up, it’s up, and no amount of clean living will change that, so you might as well max out your jollies while you can.”

I looked at Spider, “Yah, I know,” he said, “It’s hard to argue with Red’s philosophy.”

The next morning, I was wakened by the sound of the ugly school bus idling for the trip to the Rapid City BMW dealer. I got up and saw that Spider was driving. Shortly afterwards, two Rapid City taxis pulled up. A bunch of bikers packed in and drove off, supervised by the lawyer. Turns out they were off to get rental bikes from the Harley dealer. They told me later that all this was being paid for by the City of Spearfish. I wondered how much liability the town would have assumed without the lawyer present.

Candy bounced over and handed me the keys to Spider’s bike. “It’s all yours till your bike gets back from the dealer, Montana, isn’t that great! Chip says we’re going to Deadwood for breakfast, so let’s gear up!” This was clearly not open for discussion.

The Low Rider was a handful. It didn’t fall into corners like the R90S – it had to be steered. The bike didn’t fly like a bird, it lumbered like an ox. The spread-eagle riding position reminded me of my Natuzzi recliner. I wondered how any Harley rider could ever make a quick evasive maneuver? I rode carefully at the end of the pack so as to avoid holding anyone up. I came to enjoy the sound of all those Harleys rumbling in tune with mine, and it was very comfortable on the straights. I just had to remember that in turns, this machine had to be muscled like an old pick-up truck rather than thrown around like a bicycle. The beautiful canyon followed a tree-lined river with dark, steep rock faces on either side. This was not a place you wanted to miss a corner; granite does not flex.

When I first visited Deadwood in the ’70s, it was a real town with a hardware store, pharmacy, grocer and so on right on the main street. Since then, the state has legalized gambling and now it’s all casinos and tourist shops — more like Disneyland than the authentic Old West.

I was disappointed, but the rest of the renegades weren’t concerned. They headed straight for the nearest casino. The guys gravitated to the bar while the girls played the slot machines. Breakfast came in a glass. I wasn’t interested in that, so I told them I was going for a proper breakfast. KP, Gimp, and his girlfriend, Tina, walked out of the of the casino with me. The fresh air was preferable to the stench of stale cigarette smoke. In the ’80s, no-smoking sections hadn’t yet been invented.

We enjoyed a filling breakfast at real restaurant, and wandered back to the casino on the other side of the street. We came across on old-time photo studio and Tina insisted on a group photo. This idea was a pain at the time as we all had to change into western gear, but I treasure the photo now. The photographer told us to wear our best outlaw faces.

After an hour or so, we headed for the next casino, but it was full of Bandidos. Chip turned us around at the door and said, “I think we’ll go elsewhere.”

He explained later, “There are a few clubs you really don’t want to mix with, I tend to avoid the Bandidos and the Mongols. Unlike the Hells Angels, they’re just too unpredictable.”

Eventually, we came to the Saloon No. 10, site of the murder of Wild Bill Hickok. He was shot in the back by a cowardly, low-life varmint named “Broken Nose Jack” McCall. McCall was angry for having lost all his money the day before in a poker game in which Hickok was a participant. Hickok was facing the wall rather than the door – contrary to his usual habit; otherwise, he’d have seen McCall coming and been prepared. McCall shot him in the back.

The early years of my life were spent on my maternal grandmother’s farm. While Opa (grandpa) worked at the paper mill, Oma raised pigs and grew greens and grapevines. I passed the time feeding chickens and collecting fruit from trees and berry bushes, occasionally bringing back a handful of mushy, warm raspberries. Whatever we didn’t preserve or eat was bartered for dairy and grains from neighboring farms. The barn was twice as large as the three-room house and surrounded by dense shadowy woods – the domain of childhood nightmares where witches, wolves, and vampires roamed.

The only way off the farm was a narrow lane leading to a dirt road which led to the village, the center of which was the local church, Our Lady of the Snows, where just about everyone was baptized, married, and buried. There wasn’t much else except a small general store, tavern, and post office. Along that road to Zgornja Velka, there were as many horses as cars, and most people commuted by bus or bicycle. Through the 1970s, my Slovenian oma still had an outhouse, a wood-burning stove for heat and cooking, and drew well-water from a hand pump. We had radio and limited television programming, but the real entertainment was performed live at taverns and celebrations.

Because Slovenia had been passed from one Germanic empire to another for a thousand years, the music was a mix of accordion-centered polka, Austrian waltzes, and regional alpine folk music – all of which would be familiar in any beer hall or harvest festival. Our most famous export, Slavko Avsenik und seine Original Oberkrainer ensemble, has played polka worldwide to German-speaking people, Slavs, and other enthusiasts. If you’ve enjoyed polka in North America, chances are the Avsenik family was an influence. Unless it was at the Heidelberg Restaurant, I didn’t hear polka too often growing up after we moved to New York, but it has always lived comfortably in my psyche, alongside Jimi Hendrix and Slayer.

Before the 1990s civil war tore Yugoslavia apart, my parents and I would return for several weeks at a time to visit family and friends. We’d land in Munich and proceed on old-fashioned sleeper trains: through alpine passes, past deserted stuccoed stations bathed by amber lamps, into the sweetest air of slumbering farms, and through remote twinkling villages, until we reached the rising sun of Brčko (byrr-ch-koe) in northeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, where my stepfather’s family lived. Compared to Slovenia, just 200 miles to the north, Bosnia was a starkly different world. (As Bosnia and Herzegovina is a union of two regions, I will refer to the northern area simply as Bosnia for the sake of brevity, and Bosnia-Herzegovina for the entire country.)

My Bosnian grandma, Emina, an urbane and urban dowager, lived in a large apartment with indoor plumbing, artwork, and antiques. She also didn’t grow her own food because shops, restaurants, and cafes were right outside along paved streets. Exciting new sights and sounds filled my day until 3 pm when the entire city reposed for two hours. With most stores and houses shuttered, I sat with my grandmother drinking surreptitious cups of coffee while struggling to relearn Bosnian with its smattering of Arabic words.

On market days, I accompanied Emina past minarets and church towers and a town hall that now reminds me of a Moorish fortress. I felt important walking with my “majka” as she introduced me to people along her shopping route. Although she was a mother-in-law and grandmother to many, we all called her Majka, a Slavic word for mother. [NB. the ‘aj’ in majka sounds like eye]. The central market was an overflowing rainbow of melons, peppers, and people who came from farms on the outskirts of town. Children walked barefoot in the summers, older men still wore fezzes and traditional hats, and older women donned kerchiefs on their heads against the sun. There might even be an occasional group of colorful Romani Muslims passing by on a horse-drawn carriage. Had it been just seventy years earlier, the marketplace would have been a scene of turbans, veils, and baggy pants.

Majka was always given the best and treated with the type of respect my other grandmother had never known. Anywhere we went in town, Majka was addressed as Begovića or the wife of a Beg (chieftain). Socialist Yugoslavia did away with aristocracy, but the older people of Brčko still remembered prominent families. After all, Majka’s Ottoman in-laws had been in Bosnia since England’s King Henry VIII sat on the throne.

Back home, Majka prepared a midday salad of cucumbers, tomato, and onions accompanied by warm pita bread and kajmak (thick fermented cream). We sat on old Persian rugs eating from a table with short legs. Afterward, aromas of sweet, buttery, walnut baklava and Turkish coffee permeated the air. The beans, which she roasted herself, had to be ground to a fine powder using a cylindrical hand-cranked copper grinder, which I was allowed to operate. The reward would be a children’s coffee diluted with milk and served with large rectangular sugar cubes dipped halfway into the cup, bitten off, and chased with coffee.

Drinking kahva was a constant ritual. Anytime you crossed a threshold, a copper pot of thick creamy coffee appeared ready to accompany joy, tragedy, and the worries of daily life. I was entertained listening to the adults argue, laugh, and yell over each other late into the night. Eventually, they would start singing – usually, my stepfather, who opted for a cocktail in addition to coffee. Observant Muslims generally do not consume alcohol, but many were non-observant by the late 1960s. Suddenly, my stepfather would raise his eyes and hands to the heavens and start singing a sad song as tears streamed down his face. He sang these tunes in Manhattan too, but I thought he made them up as he went along. Being home seemed to release torrents of emotions. Just as I rolled my eyes and before my mother could say, “Oh Hans, please don’t!” everyone else joined in singing and weeping.

The melancholy songs could go on for hours as they remembered dead and distant relatives, heroes, Begs, Pashas, and prominent cities like Banja Luka, Sarajevo, and even Stambolu na Bosforu (Istanbul on the Bosporus). The songs celebrated the ancient world and the recent past, reminding them of pain, ecstasy, and unrequited loves. Except for religion, reserved for the mosque, there was a song for everything – even one about making coffee! I understood a few words, but I could always identify “Majka moja!” It’s the Slavic version of mamma mia! Songs often involved mothers and the greater concept of Mother, the matriarch and hub of the family and your emotional, physical, and spiritual home. It’s the name you invoke when times are good or, more likely, bad. These threads make up the very essence of Sevdah music.

Named after the Turkish word for love, Sevdah is the traditional folk music of Bosnia-Herzegovina, based on poems by forgotten authors that survived through oral tradition, and provided inspiration for newer music. Sevdah had a big post-World War II resurgence and also attracted artists from other parts of Yugoslavia. Between the 1960s and 1980s, a score of singers dominated the airwaves, crossing borders to establish Yugoslav identity and unity. However, a Sevdah song (Sevdalinka) is not focused on the instrumental or vocal superiority of highly trained musicians – as evidenced by my family gatherings. It is neither an act nor a show: it’s about becoming the song by feeling the emotions, understanding the poet’s message, and experiencing the weight and texture of every word.

It is accepted that Sevdah began with the arrival of the Turks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but its prior origins and development are as mysterious as its sound. One of the oldest Bosnian Sevdalinkas dates to 1475 and is about a man called Mujo, a typical Muslim name that occurs in many songs. Did it sound anything like this heroic epic poem? Click on the photo or on this link to listen:

(It’s the story of Mujo, who seeks to capture a man who was burning towers and kidnapping women. The bard is likely using a bowed gusle like in the photo above. Full credit for deciphering this poem goes to my Bosnian cousin, Emina. Image courtesy of Old Postcards of Bosnia.)

However, the Ottomans didn’t arrive in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the overnight train. It was a voyage of 300 years and thousands of miles starting in 1299, when the House of Osman expanded through the Middle East, across North Africa, Greece, and eventually most of Europe south of Austria and between the Adriatic and Russia. It’s fascinating to ponder what else influenced Turkish court musicians. Did they bring elements of Cairo, Damascus, and Athens to Bosnia-Herzegovina before encountering indigenous Christian Slavs who had their own music – perhaps precursors of this “dance song?”

(The beautifully mournful polyphonic singing common in Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia mentions the Kolo, or circle dance, probably one of the first dances performed by humans as they joined hands and spun around a fire.)

Add influences from Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, and Roma musicians, plus another 400 years of Slavic and Turkish intermingling, and we have the style of Sevdah I listened to in the heyday of 1974. I still prefer that era’s old-school vibrato-heavy female singers, like Nada Mamula and Beba Selimović.

(Recorded in 1962 by Beba Selimović, Put putuje Latif Aga is a popular song written about Latif-aga Tetaric and his friend Suleiman Selman who travel the road back to Turkey as the Austro-Hungarian Empire captures Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878.)

We can be confident that lutes were Sevdah’s main instruments – possibly accompanied by other local archaic strings, percussion instruments, and woodwinds. Still, the sound of Sevdalinka changed forever when the Habsburg-era accordion replaced the Saz lute as the centerpiece, thus severing a significant link to antiquity. Fortunately, many current bands use traditional instruments together with modern ones and the ever-present accordion. Here is a rendition of Put putuje Latif Aga by the Barcelona Gipsy Balkan Orchestra:

Along with a fresh crop of world music bands, I’m part of the next generation who is slowly finding new meaning and connections through folk music. As a child in America, I concealed my adopted family. I never let on that my stepfather’s real name was Hasan and not Hans, and I certainly never told anyone that he was born Beg Hasan. Unless my friends’ grandparents also drank muddy coffee and ate unpronounceable food, I never mentioned Bosnia or Turkey. The Ottoman Empire might not be in my genetic code, but it has imparted to me an incredibly rich heritage. As a result of the Turks’ long journey, Sevdah links me to cultures far beyond my birthplace in rural Slovenia. When I can recognize even a single common tone, word, or melody in another’s music, then we are automatically more connected than divided. Our shared experiences of pain, love, and joy go beyond religion, class, or nationality. And, that too is the essence of Sevdah.

If you want to learn more, click here.

Big Bill Broonzy
The Midnight Special: Live in Nottingham 1957
ORG Music

If blues legend Big Bill Broonzy (1893–1958) plied his trade in the 21^st century, he’d probably be an Uber driver. A gig-economy practitioner in his day, to make ends meet, Broonzy was employed as a sharecropper, dishwasher, cook, foundry worker, coal miner, piano mover, janitor at a college, and preacher. His bosses included an undertaker.

Born in Mississippi, “Big Bill” – the name refers to his 6-foot 6-inch physical stature – remains largely unsung as far as a household name, despite recording several hundred songs, many of which he wrote. As a teenager in Alabama, he entertained kids by making music from cornstalks, and later played a homemade fiddle at white folks’ parties. Broonzy left Arkansas in February 1920 for Chicago, switching to guitar when the opportunity arose. He made his first record in 1927, and quickly fit in with the burgeoning blues scene as a session player. He often sat in with the first harmonica player known as Sonny Boy Williamson.

From the late 1920s through the late 1950s, this immensely prolific blues performer won over fellow musicians and “race music” fans alike. Nearly every label – notably Okeh, Paramount, and Vocalion in the early days, and later Folkways, Mercury, Victor, and Columbia, among them – released Broonzy records during and after his lifetime.

Yet he couldn’t support his family solely with music, despite far exceeding the recorded output of more revered contemporaries, such as the relatively short-lived Robert Johnson (1911–1938) and Charley Patton (1891–1934), or Son House (1902–1988). In 1939, renowned producer John Hammond sought Johnson to be a featured performer for his “Swing to Spirituals” concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall, only to find out that the author of “Crossroads” was deceased. Broonzy took his place.

Mentoring Muddy Waters, Broonzy implored: “Do your thing, stay with it, man; if you stay with it, you goin’ to make it.” His disciple recorded an all-Broonzy tribute album in 1959.

Some of his aforementioned occupations found their way into Broonzy originals, such as “Night Watchman” or “Mopper’s Blues,” the latter a pillar of the pre-famous Rod Stewart repertoire. Without Broonzy, the world would be devoid of the rock staple, “Key to the Highway.” Eric Clapton, who studied Broonzy’s guitar technique as a teenager, included the song on his Derek & The Dominos Layla album. If Clapton was two decades older, or Broonzy two decades younger, I have no doubt they would have collaborated.

Keith Richards, in his autobiography Life, mentions that he listened to Broonzy as a child: “Big Bill Broonzy realized he could ride up a bit of dough if he switched from Chicago blues to being a folksy bluesman for European audiences.” (He first landed on the continent as a World War I soldier.)

Indeed, the concert on Big Bill Broonzy – Live in Nottingham 1957, recorded in March 1957 in Nottingham, England, brandishes a folk blues that would soon become a mainstay at Newport’s folk and blues festivals.

As with other bluesmen, Big Bill’s material came from his wanderlust, fondness for women and whiskey, and societal racism, which he experienced at a Nottingham hotel in 1955 when he was told “coloreds” were not allowed; Bill eventually received an apology from the management.

This solo performance captures for posterity Big Bill’s affable personality and ability to hold the attention of an appreciative audience with his storytelling, acoustic guitar licks and a strong singing voice that leaves an indelible impression that this man had experiences in the fields, the factories, and the railroads. The 1957 Nottingham set list largely consists of folk standards including “The Midnight Special” and “This Train,” on which you can hear a little Elvis Presley swing, as Broonzy’s introduction slyly alludes to some “rockin’ and rollin’  cultural appropriation. We know what came first.

Here’s another Big Bill Broonzy clip (from a different performance than on the album).

Exhibiting the talent of any great song stylist, Broonzy makes all his own “The Glory of Love,” an often-covered chestnut since the 1930s. In introducing “Trouble in Mind,” Big Bill notes a former roommate, Richard Jones, wrote the song. “He was a man,” he laughs, nothing wrong with that. On “What Kind Of Man Jesus Is,” Broonzy harks back to his religious roots. He’s self-deprecating on “In the Evening,” quipping that the song killed its composer, another friend. “I hope it doesn’t kill me.” Three months after this concert, Big Bill learned he had lung cancer, to which he succumbed at 65 in August 1958.

It’s no wonder American folklorists Alan Lomax, Moe Asch and Studs Terkel (a pallbearer for Big Bill, as was Waters) picked up on Broonzy’s chameleon knack for absorbing the cultural zeitgeist and influencing others.

As with today’s musicians making do with pennies from Spotify streams, he needed to supplement his live gigs with other labor because he never collected his proper share of recording royalties. “I always worked at all kinds of hard jobs,” Broonzy told an interviewer in 1956. “I was never able to alone rely on my own music ‘til 1953.” We’re all the poorer for that.

Here’s one more Big Bill Broonzy clip (also from a different performance than on the album).

Note: this article originally appeared as the liner notes to The Midnight Special: Live in Nottingham 1957.

Part One in Issue 146 covered Burt Bacharach’s early years, writing hits for artists like Jerry Butler, Gene McDaniels, Gene Pitney, and…the Five Blobs. The series continues here.

The work of Burt Bacharach and his lyricist partner Hal David is arguably best represented by their work with Dionne Warwick. In Warwick, they had a singer who could convincingly deliver David’s lyrics, while also handling the complex melodies Bacharach would deliver. It got to the point where they would write their most sophisticated tunes for Warwick.

Marie Dionne Warrick was born in 1940, coming from a musical family. Her mother’s family were members of the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group, and Warrick sang as part of the Gospelaires (which also included her aunt Cissy Houston). This led to background vocal work in recording studios in New York. At a session for The Drifters’ single “Mexican Divorce,” her voice was noticed by Bacharach. He and Hal David hired her to record demos of tunes they were composing, in order to pitch them to the record labels. One demo in particular was for a tune intended for The Shirelles, “It’s Love That Really Counts.” When Florence Greenberg, the president of Scepter Records, heard the demo, she insisted Warrick be signed to the label. A deal was worked out with Warrick joining Bacharach and David’s production company, which in turn was signed to Scepter.

Her first single, “Don’t Make Me Over,” supposedly came about after a small disagreement with Bacharach and David in the studio. They took that phrase and turned it into her first single. When Scepter printed the labels for the single, they mistakenly spelled her surname as Warwick. The name stuck, and she used the spelling professionally from that point forward.

“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was Warwick’s first Top 10 single and an international million seller.

The classic “Walk on By” followed in 1964. This is perhaps her signature tune with the Bacharach/David team. This one also made it into the Top 10, and gained further notoriety when Isaac Hayes took an edit of his own lengthy version up the charts five years later.

Here’s a song about suspicion, with a stop/start arrangement that adds the appropriate tension. This one did not chart highly for Warwick but is nonetheless an interesting tune.

“Do You Know the Way To San Jose” is a tale of a San Jose native who heads to Los Angeles, and having failed to make it big, is plotting her return home. Warwick never liked this song, yet she won her first Grammy with this record, and it was another international smash.

The stage musical Promises, Promises was based on an adaptation of the Billy Wilder film The Apartment, which starred Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Bacharach and David wrote the music for the production. While this resulted in some fine music, the perfectionist Bacharach was long frustrated by the results of the music being performed live every night, and never being played the same way twice.

Another tune used in Promises became a hit single for Warwick: “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.” Interesting piece of trivia – the phrase “You get enough germs to catch pneumonia” from the tune was an amusing little tweak by Hal David to Bacharach, who had fallen ill with pneumonia while writing music for the production.

One of Warwick’s best-known performances was yet another tune used in the production, “I Say A Little Prayer.” The beat on this track is infectious, which helped it climb to Number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

A quieter track by Warwick, this next one was not the typical romantic song, but a lament about the US involvement in the Vietnam War. This was not a big hit for Warwick. Hal David, however, had two sons approaching draft age, and it weighed on his mind when he wrote these lyrics.

Aside from Dionne Warwick’s success during this era, there were contemporaries of hers that recorded plenty of other great Bacharach/David tunes. We will examine a handful of those in the next installment.

Header image of Dionne Warwick courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Allan Warren.

Given the up-and-coming jazz greats who surrounded him, Bobby Hutcherson was likely to become a musician. While they were growing up in Los Angeles, Hutcherson’s brother was a good friend of saxophonist Dexter Gordon. His sister, a singer, dated saxophonist/clarinetist Eric Dolphy. Despite the proximity of these innovative reed men, Hutcherson made his mark on a much different instrument, the vibraphone, on which he developed a new, pianistic style that was as much about melody as it was about harmony and rhythm.

His first inspiration on vibraphone was Milt Jackson, who showed up on a Miles Davis album and blew the 12-year-old away. Within a few years, Hutcherson had gained enough dexterity and musicianship on his instrument that Dolphy invited him to sit in on his gigs at the jazz club Pandora’s Box. In 1963, bassist Herbie Lewis, a childhood friend who would remain a close collaborator his whole life, helped Hutcherson land a record deal with Blue Note. The vibraphonist remained with that label for the next 15 years.

Every possible manifestation of bebop and its descendants came out of Hutcherson’s four mallets. He loved the avant-garde, always seeming to search for a new sound, another way to use the melodic, chordal, and percussive aspects of his instrument. After a long, stellar career that included appearances on about a hundred albums, Hutcherson died in 2016 at the age of 75.

Enjoy these eight great tracks by Bobby Hutcherson.

1. Track: “Juba Dance”
   Album: Components
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1965

Drummer Joe Chambers wrote half the tracks on this album, while Hutcherson wrote the others. The all-star line-up includes Herbie Hancock on piano and organ, Ron Carter on bass, James Spaulding on alto sax and flute, and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet.

“Juba Dance” is one of Chambers’ compositions. “Less is more” is the phrase that comes to mind to describe Hutcherson’s pattern of two syncopated chords per bar, essential yet restrained, leaving plenty of room for Spaulding’s meandering solo.

2. Track: “Matrix”
   Album: Total Eclipse
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1969

This is one of many collaborations between Hutcherson and tenor saxophonist Harold Land, who was best known for his work with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown band and for helping to push bebop into the hard- and post-bop era. Chambers is again on drums, with Chick Corea on piano and Reggie Johnson on bass.

Corea contributed a composition called “Matrix.” Hutcherson and Land play off each other like an old married couple. Listening to Hutcherson’s shimmering, high-speed solo starting at 2:21 is like looking at the northern lights through a kaleidoscope.

3. Track: “Clockwork of the Spirit”
   Album: Head On
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1971

One of the interesting things about the album Head On is the size of its musical forces. Hutcherson assembled an 18-man jazz orchestra with a wide range of sounds, from piccolo to bongos. The original release contained four long tracks, which were increased to seven for the subsequent CD reissue. All but one of the tunes are by pianist Todd Cochran, who also served as the album’s arranger.

The mix of timbres breathes otherworldly life into the track “Clockwork of the Spirit,” with its aching, modal melody.

4. Track: “Anton’s Bail”
   Album: Live at Montreux
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1973

Hutcherson’s style was ideal for live jams, making this recording from the Montreux Jazz Festival a nice treat. He and trumpeter Woody Shaw complement each other’s sound: Hutcherson had a particular approach when doubling a horn line, clearly understanding that his mallets completed a spectrum of texture and frequency that the other instrument couldn’t achieve without this sonic extension.

Hutcherson wrote the album opener, “Anton’s Bail.” His solo is breathtaking, expressive and exploratory.

5. Track: “Yuyo”
   Album: Montara
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1975

For Montara, Hutcherson enters the world of Latin jazz. He takes an easygoing approach, creating one of his most listenable, accessible albums, perfect for those who find post-bop to be a bit much. Playing arrangements by Dale Oehler, the ensemble includes some hard-bop session musicians like trumpeter Blue Mitchell and saxophonist Ernie Watts. But its rhythmic infrastructure is provided by Latin specialist Eddie Cano on piano and a host of great percussionists.

That team puts on a spectacular show for Hutcherson’s composition, “Yuyo.” Warning: You will start dancing, even if you’re sitting down. The vibe solo uses one of Hutcherson’s signature sounds, like machine gun made of bone.

6. Track: “Why Not”
   Album: Knucklebean
   Label: Blue Note
   Year: 1977

Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and saxophonist/flutist Hadley Caliman were the special guests on the album Knucklebean. Jazz historians and Hutcherson fans alike consistently call this record an underrated gem.

Over the years, Hutcherson recorded many tunes by pianist George Cables, who was comfortable in many bop-related subgenres. Here, the album-opener “Why Not” is by Cables, who appears on electric keyboard, providing a funky fusion feel.

7. Track: “Secrets of Love (Reprise)”
   Album: Highway One
   Label: Columbia
   Year: 1978

After leaving Blue Note Records after many years, Hutcherson signed with Columbia; Highway One was his debut with the label. George Cables is the primary composer here, and he plays keyboards as part of a group of the usual Hutcherson suspects such as Hubbard and drummer Eddie Marshall.

Special guests on the Cables tune “Secrets of Love (Reprise)” include flutist Hubert Laws and singer Jessica Cleaves. As the title implies, the melody also appears earlier on the album in another form. The first version is only instrumental, but this vocal version demonstrates a rare and fascinating interaction of vibes, Rhodes keyboard, and alto voice.

8. Track: “If I Were a Bell”
   Album: Four Seasons
   Label: Timeless
   Year: 1984

Four Seasons is a quartet album recorded in Holland by Hutcherson, Cables, bassist Herbie Lewis, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. It’s unusual for its repertoire: instead of the usual new compositions, this is a collection of American popular standards by the likes of Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and Cole Porter.

A highlight is “If I Were a Bell,” from Frank Loesser’s score for Guys and Dolls. A tune about bells – what could be more perfect for vibes? Hutcherson’s playing is as retro as the tune, harking back to the earliest days of bebop, when it was still an outgrowth of swing.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Brianmcmillen, cropped to fit format.