Song of the moment: I Don't Want to Talk About It

You probably know this song from Rod Stewart's cover version, recorded at Muscle Shoals in 1975 for his Atlantic Crossing album.  It was a hit on both sides of the pond, reaching #1 on the UK Singles Chart (1977) and climbing into the top fifty on the Billboard Hot 100 (1979).  The band Everything But The Girl would have another top-ten UK hit with it in 1988.

It's too bad the song's composer has never had the same amount of exposure.  Georgia-born Danny Whitten is best remembered as one of the founding members of the rock group Crazy Horse.  Written with Nils Lofgren, "I Don't Want to Talk About It" was included on the band's 1971 self-titled release, which would sadly be Whitten's last.  He had been abusing heroin since the late '60s, and his alcohol and drug addictions were spiraling out of control - to the point that bandmate Ralph Molina finally sacked him during rehearsals for Crazy Horse's upcoming support tour.  On November 18, 1972, Neil Young gave Whitten $50 and a plane ticket to Los Angeles when he proved unable to keep up with the other musicians during the recording sessions for Harvest.  Young received a phone call at his Bay Area ranch later that night - Danny was dead at 29 of an overdose of Valium and vodka.

Young's deep grief over the loss of his friend and musical cohort can be traced through several of his songs (such as "Don't Be Denied" - written the day after Whitten's death - and "The Needle and the Damage Done") as well as through entire albums (the dark, edgy Tonight's The Night).  Young admitted to his biographer Jimmy McDonough that he "felt responsible.  But really there was nothin' I could do - I mean, he was responsible.  But I thought I was for a long time. [...] Danny just wasn't happy.  It just all came down on him.  He was engulfed by this drug.  That was too bad.  Because Danny had a lot to give, boy.  He was really good" (Shakey, pp. 389, 390).  And this mournful, haunting ballad - augmented by Whitten's soul-weary lead vocal, the CSN-esque backing harmonies from the rest of the Horse, and the shimmering slide guitar from guest musician Ry Cooder - proves it.  

I can tell by your eyes that you’ve prob’ly been cryin’ forever,

And the stars in the sky don't mean nothin’ to you, they're a mirror.

I don't wanna talk about it, how you broke my heart.

If I stay here just a little bit longer,

If I stay here, wont you listen to my heart, whoa oh, heart

If I stand all alone, will the shadow hide the color of my heart;

Blue for the tears, black for the nights we’re apart

And the stars don’t don't mean nothin to you, they're a mirror.

I don't wanna talk about it, how you broke my heart.

If I stay here just a little bit longer,

If I stay here, wont you listen to my heart, whoa oh, heart?

My heart whoa oh heart

I don't want to talk about it, how you broke my heart.

If I stay here just a little bit longer,

If I stay here, wont you listen to my heart, whoa oh, heart?

My heart whoa oh heart.

My heart whoa oh heart.

My heart whoa oh heart.

(lyrics courtesy of Wikipedia)

Come you ladies and you gentlemen, a-listen to my song . . .

Sing it to you right, but you might think it’s wrong
Just a little glimpse of a story I’ll tell . . .
- from Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town"


No, this blog ain't about hard times in the Big Apple, the Big Easy, the Piney Woods, or any of my various other domiciles - present, former, or future.  There might be a little hard travelin' involved in the stories I'll tell, but being one who has the curse of a gypsy on her soul, that's all right, mama.  As a wall plaque gifted me by a dear friend reads, "Life is a journey, not a destination."  I'm always happiest when I'm on the road, on my way to a new adventure - well, except for the times when I'm listening to music.


I've loved music for as long as I remember.  I've been singing ever since I could talk - maybe even before.  And I love all kinds of music.  My parents listened almost exclusively to country while I was growing up, while my sister plastered her bedroom walls with Van Halen and Poison posters.  This, along with Top 40 '80s rock and the Baptist hymnal, was the soundtrack of my childhood.  I danced to Michael Jackson, sang along with Willie Nelson, fled in terror whenever my folks played the Saturday Night Fever LP on the stereo (much to their amusement), and enthusiastically participated in church choirs and the high school chorus.  It must have been a shock to them all when I was drawn to classical music after seeing the touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera at the New Orleans Saenger Theater when I was 15.  Hell, it was a surprise even to me at the time - at least, until my mother told me that when I was a baby, she placed a radio by my crib and played classical music softly to lull me to sleep at night.  Then it all made perfect sense.  I went on to participate in two All-State Honor Choirs during my junior and senior years, and spent half of my undergraduate career studying classical voice.  


I wanted to be an opera singer - well, I thought I did, anyway.  After many years of stopping and starting, I finally accepted that my heart just wasn't in it.  I wouldn't trade those years for anything, though; I had some wonderful experiences - not least among them singing with the USM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at Lincoln Center and studying with world-class teachers like Robert Mesrobian (who passed away just a week ago - may he rest in peace) and Linda Zoghby - established lifelong friendships, and had lots of fun and adventures along the way.  (Words to the wise: NEVER take a cab to Battery Park after dark, do NOT enter the auditorium late after Leontyne Price has resumed her masterclass, and ALWAYS watch out for those red lights!)  I still love to sing, and still harbor dreams of singing professionally in some form or fashion.  But at 25 I found myself drawn back to rock and roll, that sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic (and sometimes both at once) conglomeration of folk, country and blues that was always playing in the background while I was growing up.  Though it may have been yet another surprise, especially to those who had known me as an opera snob, it once again made perfect sense to me.  In my mind, I had come full circle.


I remembered how much I used to enjoy listening to the voices of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris on the radio - after all, when I was little, you COULD still hear them on the radio!  I remembered the first album I ever asked my parents for: an Elvis Presley cassette tape (which I believe I still have somewhere).  If any one artist's body of work has encompassed all of the vernacular musical forms that the American South has produced, it's that of Mississippi's favorite son - better known as the King of Rock and Roll.

And I remembered how obsessed I'd been with Eric Clapton's Unplugged album when it came out.  The songs I listened to endlessly weren't necessarily the hits "Layla" or "Tears in Heaven," though I loved those, too.  I was more fascinated with "Alberta," "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out," "San Francisco Bay Blues," "Walkin' Blues," and "Malted Milk."  At 12 years old, I couldn't have told you why I was so drawn to these songs, and I'm not sure I could tell you now.  I just knew they were unusual, haunting, and compelling - like nothing I'd heard before.  I couldn't get enough of them.


The song titles notwithstanding, I had no idea that I was listening to blues, to covers of Robert Johnson and Jesse Fuller - let alone that I was living in the state that is arguably the birthplace of that uniquely American cultural product, that timeless art borne of injustice, inequality, and great suffering.  When it came back around to me at 25, I was ready to learn more and go deeper - into why and how the blues had been created, and why and how it came to influence the creative processes of my musical heroes.  


Thus I was spurred on to another adventure - to the pursuit of a Southern studies master's degree at Ole Miss, to work and write for Living Blues magazine, and to spend a year co-producing and engineering Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Highway 61 radio show.  It's also spurred me to attend as many concerts as time and money will allow, to see up-close and personal those whose music is such an indelible part of my existence - and, in some lucky cases, to meet them and tell them so personally. 


The photo in my blog's header was taken by me on November 25, 2009, in Tutwiler, Mississippi, after I'd attended the dedication ceremony for the W. C. Handy/Tutwiler Mississippi Blues Trail marker (where I met Robert Plant, a story I'll share later).  It was here in 1903 that Handy, the great African American popular composer, heard a "lean loose-jointed Negro" playing "the weirdest music [he] had ever heard," and was inspired to write songs that would earn him the title "Father of the Blues."  These signs are located on Highway 49 and point the way towards the old train depot/Trail marker site.  I like that one of them looks very much like a Gretsch guitar - as if to say, "Hey rockers, recognize - this is where it all began."  Though this blog will be, among other things, a place for me to celebrate the rock and roll music that I love so much, I also hope to explore the roots and conditions of its inspiration and creation.  


The title is taken from a song by the '60s folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield, the launching pad for musicians such as Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay, and John Messina.  Here's a video of the reunited Stills, Young, and Furay performing "Rock and Roll Woman" at the 24th annual Bridge School Benefit concert this past weekend:





There's a woman that you ought to know
And she's coming, singing soft and low
Singing rock and roll, she's a joy to know
'Neath the shadow of a soothing hand
I am free there, just to make my plans
Dream of faraway lands, anything close at hand
And she will follow me wide, do you know
Familiar places she's been by, that I know
Could it be, she don't have to try
And tomorrow, she's a friend of mine
And the sorrow, I see her face is lined
She's no longer blind, she's just hard to find 
(Courtesy of musicsonglyrics.com)

My musical life has been a series of awakenings, both cultural and personal.  I believe that the music a person listens to says a lot about who that person is.  What do my choices say about me?  I'm still learning, still discovering.  I'm still on that journey; I'm not there, I'm gone.  Stay tuned . . .