Archive for July, 2011
This Day In Music History
July 23, 1969:
The Rolling Stones were at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with “Honky Tonk Women’, the group’s 8th and last UK No. 1. The song also topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks from 23 August 1969.
It is ranked #116 on the list of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Two versions of the song were recorded. Both are excellent in their own way. ‘Country Honk’ is the country version of the song released on Let It Bleed five months after the single release.
In an interview in the magazine Crawdaddy, Richards credits Taylor for influencing the track: “… the song was originally written as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers/1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way.”
I’m a big believer that you can usually tell how great a song is by how many great musicians have covered it. Here are some known cover-ers of Honky Tonk Woman:
Waylon Jennings
Joe Cocker
Taj Mahal
Humble Pie
Ike and Tina Turner
Elton John
Gram Parsons
The Meters
Some good company right there.
Freedom of ’76
Dear Shady Groove readers and listeners,
I hope you all had a great Independence day. You may have caught some fireworks, maybe even blew some stuff up yourselves. Anyway, we all get back to the grind this week and as I drove back into this wonderful city of brotherly love, I was reminded of how great it has been to live here. I tip my hat to Philadelphia. Great history, great music, great food, great city. So, thanks for celebrating with me. And thanks for listening to Shady Groove.
Ryan-
This song has been in my head all weekend. Hillarious old video. Local boys, Gene and Dean Ween doing Freedom of 76. Going all the way back to 1994. Pure Guava was still a new album and they had just written this song which will appear on Chocolate and Cheese. An ode to Philly. Enjoy: