By Tony Attwood
Previously in this series
- Happy anniversary, Theme Time Radio Hour. Still offering us fun
- Episode 2: Mother
- 20 years of Theme Time Radio part 3: Drinking
- Theme Time Radio Hour part 4: Coffee
Bob Dylan selected 16 songs for his Theme Time Radio Hour show on the theme of “Jail”, starting with one that I suspect many people will know, whatever their background or level of interest… Fulsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. The 1968 album “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” and subsequently “Johnny Cash at San Quentin” in 1969, recorded his live appearances in prisons and became immensly popular.
It is also often stated that Johnny Cash was himself imprisoned, but other accounts contradict this, and I am not at all sure he was actually incarcerated, although he was arrested for substance abuse and for what in England is known as being “drunk and disorderly.” There are also reports of arrests for smuggling drugs from Mexico into the USA, so maybe the imprisonment reports are true. Either way maybe we can say he sailed close to the wind.
What struck me in listening to the tracks that Bob Dylan selected for this show, however, is just how many of them were songs based on the three chords of the 12 bar blues. There is a fair amount of variation in the tracks in terms of how the sequence of chords is treated of course, as with “21 Days in Jail” by Magic Sam, recorded in 1958. Magic Sam (1958), but still the 12 bar theme often rings out through the songs.
In the case of the next track, however, perhaps I am not alone in primarily remembering that Magic Sam was one of those artists who suddenly appeared on the scene, and yet within a few years (just six years in fact) he was no longer with us. He toured Europe in the 60s and in 1969 reached the heights of the Ann Arbor Blues Festival. But then suddenly at the end of the decade, he suffered a heart attack and then passed away.
Of course, Bob has always varied the music he has offered us on his show, – which is one of the things that made the series so interesting, and it is hard to imagine much more of a contrast between the song above and the Pretenders.
This classic 12 bar blues is typical of the songs Bob found for this theme – 12 bars, fast and with a bit of an extra “something” to distinguish it, as with the bass singer adding the two phrase “bad boy” (although for my taste today probably more times than we really needed). Mind you, the title of Jimmie Patton’s song “Okie’s ion the Pokie” gives us a fair idea of what is coming up.
But of course, one of the great elements of Bob’s radio shows was the variety of the songs that he was able to recall and conjure up for each programme. And this meant that Bob didn’t feel the restrictions that traditional DJs have of playing songs of a standard length; indeed were very simple and short. I guess these were included to show us all what a variety there could be within a single theme.
As an example, consider “In the Jailhouse Now” by Sir Douglas Quintet from 1965. It is particularly noteworthy for its length – under one minute!
https://youtu.be/_0tDNfcB6iQ
The final song I’ve chosen to illustrate the programme comes from Mere Harrard (“Sing me back home”) – the tenth anniversary of his passing will occur in a couple of months. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he survived well into old age and his reputation as a songwriter and a violinist as well as a guitarist, remains undiminished.
What is aso moving in relation to his work are the reports of his extremely troubled younger years, which led him to sing songs relating to his own experiences rather than using the themes of the day.
He also quite rightly gained multiple awards for his music, and survived until his 79th birthday. This is “Sing me back home”