My Two Favorite Songs From the Pandemic (So Far)

I know what you’re thinking…. “Come on, Colin – what great new songs have come out of this pandemic? Sure, you can come up with an apocalypse soundtrack.. but don’t you have any new songs that get you up and running?”
Yep, I’m sure that’s just what you’re thinking, with all that you’ve got going on…

Well, look at it this way: I listen so you don’t have to.

And boy, do I have a couple of beauties for you.
Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes – eleven minutes, between the two songs – and throw them on.
You’ll be so glad you did. If not, I’ll give you your money back.

The first song isn’t exactly a new one… it’s a rekindling of a 1974 hidden gem.
The second one is brand new, and beautifully written just for our times, by a stunning new troubadour for our times.

Blackberry Smoke and Jimmy Hall: “Keep On Smiling”

Maybe you remember the band Wet Willie, out of Mobile, Alabama. Maybe you don’t.

But I bet you remember this song, from its rhythmic opening notes.
For me, it takes me back to the summer before junior year in high school.

Go ahead, turn it on.
See if your foot doesn’t start tapping from the opening beats.
See if you don’t have a smile on your face by the end of the song.

As a teenager, I was charmed and delighted by:

• The name of the band (a “Wet Willie” was the act of licking your finger, and sticking it someone’s ear – that must’ve been big in Alabama middle schools back then)
• The jaunty, oddly familiar bass line, bouncing the song along
• The way the band suddenly stopped at the final verse, and the singer yelled out, “So you’re hanging out in the local bar/And you’re wonderin’ who the hell you are/ Are you a bum/Are you a star?”

It’s interesting to see what bands try to do in this empty, frustrating era of no touring and no revenue.
Some try livestreams, with varying degrees of success.
Some, like Blackberry Smoke, gather at their studios, and try their hands at old songs, pulling in some fun collaborators – in this case, Jimmy Hall, the lead singer of Wet Willie.
Together, they give this song even more power and joy than when it first came out.

Blackberry Smoke is a roots rock outfit out of Atlanta, and they have a way of incorporating lots of different elements – and people – into their songs. I first came across them with this slow, burning cover of Tom Petty’s “You Got Lucky,” with the talented Amanda Shires on fiddle and harmony.

And I had no inkling of the magic of Jimmy Hall. More than 46 years after this song was a hit on the radio, he is a force of nature.
He becomes a cross between Van Morrison and Delbert McClinton, as he turns the old pop chestnut into a church revival.
It’s fun watching the smiles grow on the faces of the band members, as Jimmy kicks it into gear.

But it’s really the two background singers who raise it to another level.
They’re The Black Bettys, also from Atlanta.

Their beautiful harmonies power the choruses along, until the end, when The Bettys and Jimmy start a call-and-response thing, which leads Jimmy into a church preacher act, with a bring-down-the-house finale.

I’m not sure why Blackberry Smoke chose to resurrect this old chestnut.
But I’m really glad they did.
It is just the sound of pure joy.

J.S. Ondara: “Lockdown on Date Night Tuesday”

It’s a rare artist who can capture the zeitgeist of a moment.

A few have tried to commemorate an event, or to take a snapshot of a period.
Some have done better than others.

For my money, Marvin Gaye’s “What’ Going On?” still stands as the most powerful prayer to a moment.
Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” capsulized the frustration and the energy of the ‘60s protests.
Steven Stills actually wrote it (in 1966) about the club-goers on Sunset Strip, clashing with the business owners and older residents. But it couldn’t help but become the anthem for anti-war protests.

A few years later, Stills and his buddies Crosby, Nash, and Young rushed to the studio to record their horror and disgust at the shooting of four Kent State students, shot for protesting the Vietnam war. They quickly released “Ohio”, 50 years ago this month.
Timely as it was, you can argue whether or not it was one of their better songs.

We’ve seen celebrity super-clatches produce songs like “Do They Know It’s Christmastime” or “We Are the World” in response to world calamities.
I always thought Prince’s “Sign of The Times” put a nice timestamp on things.

I was always looking for someone to say something meaningful after 9/11, anything to try to get it to make any sense.
Springsteen tried, with “The Rising” and “My City in Ruins”.
For me, the closest thing was Ryan Adams’ “New York, New York”, released just before the twin towers went down. It wasn’t a statement. But it somehow caught the feeling of the moment.

Several have tried in this moment that we’re in now.
I don’t think anybody’s caught it like JS Ondara has.

It’s hard to find a more compelling story than JS Ondara’s.
As a teenager living in Nairobi, Kenya, he heard Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and suddenly realized he had to be somewhere else.
“I didn’t know the words,” he said. “I made up my own words to it, about bugs and plants and things…. I just knew I loved the music. I’d never heard anything like it before.”

Somehow, Nirvana led him to Bob Dylan, and he had a mission.
To the extent that he left his family in Kenya to go to Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota.

And along the way, he became a modern, Kenyan, true incarnation of Dylan.

Listen to the open chords of his guitar strumming.
Listen to his harmonica (though much more melodic than Dylan’s).
Listen to his phrasing, the way he snarls out certain words and expressions.
Listen to the way he paints a picture.

The picture he draws isn’t political; it’s not a statement.
It’s just the picture of everyday life, right there in the title: It’s Tuesday night, “date night”… and the restaurants are all closed.
But it’s ok… “I will put my gray suit on… and you can put your red dress on… and I’m gonna meet you at the dining table.”

Sometimes, we’re not looking for somebody to tell us how something should be, or how we should feel.

Sometimes we’re just looking for an artist to show us a picture of how we are.

And here’s the thing: he created a whole damn album about it.
It’s called Folk ‘n’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation, and it just came out today, unannounced.
You wouldn’t think an album where every single song was about the pandemic would be so incredibly entertaining, so beautiful. But it is.

Just as on his 2019 debut album, Tales Of America, Ondara combines his Dylanesque melodies with his high-pitched African moans and self-backing harmonies that give it a haunting sound like nothing else out there.

Think of Bruce Springsteen’s classic acoustic album, Nebraska. That’s the feeling you get listening to Ondara’s album.

It came pouring out of him, writing and recording it in three days, quarantined at his home in Minnesota.

You get the feeling that JS Ondara is the inspired kind of genius who comes up with gorgeous melodies all the time in the shower – actually he does have one called “Shower Song,” in which he sings over and over, “I’m so tired of being inside.”
Come on – tell me you haven’t done the same thing.

Sometimes it’s just nice to know you’re not the only one feeling that way.

Here’s something to think about:
Musicians are in a painful, frustrating place right now.
They’re just recovering from having their income stripped away from them, with the digital revolution virtually eliminating any money from record sales – as Gillian Welch wrote, “Everything is free.”
To support themselves, they had to turn to touring – that, and merchandise sales, became their main source of revenue.
And now, that has been taken away from them, too. (Along with the joy of playing for audiences.)

If you like these songs, and if you are in a position to, consider buying their new music.
Or support your favorite bands – especially those that haven’t achieved great success yet.

Blackberry Smoke is putting its quarantine sessions on a new EP, Live From Capricorn Sound Studios, available to pre-order now.
Here’s the tracklist of covers:

1. “Midnight Rider”
2. “Take the Highway” feat. Marcus Henderson
3. “Keep on Smiling” feat. Jimmy Hall and the Black Bettys
4. “Grits Ain’t Groceries” ft. the Black Bettys
5. “Revival” feat. the Black Bettys
6. “Southern Child” feat. the Black Bettys

JS Ondara’s Folk ‘n’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation is available now, along with his first album.