Turns out that Neil Young plays harmonica on Joni Mitchell's Hejira, "Furry Sings the Blues." I find this strange. Why try to coax a perpetually messy and unpleasant circa-1976 Neil Young out of his puddle of vomit and down the hill from Topanga, just to play his shakey-at-best harmonica? Seems like it'd be easier to just learn the harmonica part yourself.
The lesson here is that 1960's and 1970's LA scene rock acts were essentially rappers: "Hey, let's find an excuse to get all our friends in the studio to phone-in some completely unnecessary cameos. Then we'll get high."
Tangent: Brother-in-law Matt and I went to the Hollywood Cemetary in Memphis last summer to find Furry Lewis' grave. We walked around in the mid-southern hot-ick for over an hour looking for the tombstone, while a man with a hole in his throat did general weed-whacking. He had no idea where Furry Lewis' grave was, but assured us that his brother would know. His brother was off fixing a punctured tractor-tire, but "should be back soon," which in the South means, "eventually, or not at all, or we'll see, or let's have a beer." The man sounded like he was speaking a foreign language, but he was in fact speaking English.
We gave up and got back in the car and turned on the air-conditioner. Worried that the unpaved and rocky cemetary roads would puncture my tires, we drove slow. For reasons I don't actually remember, we soon rolled to a stop . . . right in front of the final resting place of "Walter 'Furry' Lewis: Blues Man."
I think the story is that Furry Lewis hated Joni Mitchell's song and maybe even sued her. To be memorialized in song is to be treated like a dead man, of course, but presumably Furry's beef was less that and more the fact that "Furry Sings the Blues" is an incredibly boring Joni Mitchell song. Not being about California and all.
Here are some other gravestones from the Hollywood Cemetary. Cemetaries down there remind you that in some ways, the American South remains a developing nation even today.
And the prize for most depressing tombstone ever:
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2 comments:
That tomb is the most awesome photo I have seen this month.
a) i like that joni mitchell song.
b) have you seen "last waltz"? because then i think you'll know why neil young is playing the harmonica on this song. because he WUVS joni. he wants to KEEESS her. or he wants to chop her up into parts. hard to tell.
c) that is one depressing headstone. in brighton we found one that looked like it had been made at a trophy shop and used IM slang e.g. 2 sweet 4 eva.
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