SLS: I Used To Pull Your Pigtails

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It’s Song Lyric Sunday all over again, and this week Jim is inviting us to play a song written or performed by someone who was born in the month of March. His appropriately titled post March Music Birthdays tells all. I have saved a link to a site which gives a detailed listing of birthdays by month, and found several possibilities for March. But one stood out above all of the others, someone whose music I have loved since he first started making records in the early Seventies, so that’s who I’m playing today. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Ryland Peter Cooder!

Ry Cooder was born on March 15, 1947, and is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries. The list of people with whom he has played is phenomenal – if you aren’t on it, then you’re nobody! I’ve chosen three of his songs for you today, and have managed to find live performances of each of them. One of my favourites of his is this one:

Given the problems I have endured recently I am continuing my work round of not quoting the lyrics in my post, but if you’d like to see them you can find them on the Genius.com website. Little Sister was the opening track on Ry’s eighth album, Bop Till You Drop, which was released in July 1979 and peaked at #62 in the US, though it made #7 in both Australia and New Zealand. In a rare failure for Wikipedia they don’t show it as a UK hit, but our Official Charts Company (OCC) came to the rescue to tell me that the album reached #36 here during a nine week stay. He has only ever had one very minor hit single here, but twelve of his albums have made the Top 100, which I think is pretty respectable for what might be regarded as a niche style. The song was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and was first recorded in 1961 by Elvis Presley, who had a US #5 hit with it, and as a double A-side with (Marie’s The Name) His Latest Flame it made #1 in the UK.

My second tune for today was also the opening track of an album, and was its title track. This is Get Rhythm:

And again, Genius.com has the lyrics. The Get Rhythm album, Ry’s eleventh, was released in November 1987, in the days when I bought much of my music in cassette form. I have a fond memory of buying it in Folkestone, some 90+ miles from where I lived, when I was spending a day there with my Mum. She had asked me to do a bit of shopping for her and it seemed right to do a bit for myself while I was at it, and I played the album in full twice on the drive home. Like everything he has done I loved it. Again, Wikipedia is light on data, but the OCC show the album as having reached #75 in the UK, and this track was later released as a single, which spent two weeks in May 1988, peaking at #93 – his only entry in the UK Singles Chart. The song was written and first recorded by Johnny Cash, originally released as the B-side to the single I Walk the Line in 1956, but was re-released with overdubbed “live” effects in September 1969 as an A-side single and reached #60 on the Billboard Pop chart.

Proving that I’m playing these in no particular order, my final Ry Cooder choice was on his fourth album, Paradise and Lunch, which was released in June 1974 and reached #167 in the US. This is The Tattler:

And making their third entry for the lyrics, here again are Genius.com. You may have noticed the brief intro from our national treasure, “Whispering” Bob Harris, the man who has introduced me to so much of the music I enjoy. At that time (1977) he was the host of the fabulous Old Grey Whistle Test tv show, which was the late night antidote to the crap played on Top Of The Pops – this was music for grown-ups, and they sometimes took themselves out of the studio to show a full concert, as they did here (and the first video I played is from the same show). You Can’t Stop a Tattler was a gospel blues song, written by Washington Phillips and recorded by him in 1929. It was in two parts, and Ry based his version, with the abbreviated title, on Part 2 of Phillips’ song, but added in some of the lyrics of Part 1 to make his song longer and tell a fuller story. Linda Ronstadt later covered Ry’s version. It has one of those choruses that always gets me joining in.

That would be where I left you for today, as I rarely play more than three songs for SLS – it isn’t fair on Jim to do more as he has to listen to everything we all play! But I noticed in the news reports of the sad passing of Neil Sedaka on Friday that he was also a March baby, so it feels right to play one of his in tribute. I only ever had one of his albums – The Tra-La Days Are Over – but have always loved this song from it. It seems fitting today to play Our Last Song Together – RIP Neil:

And that is definitely it for today. Thanks as always to Jim for hosting, and I’ll see you again for some more Tuesday Tunes 🎶

54 thoughts on “SLS: I Used To Pull Your Pigtails”

  5. Once again you have expanded my musical horizons, dear Clive! I never heard of Ry Cooder until today, but contrary to what you expected, I didn’t dislike his music at all! In fact, I think it could grow on me. (I won’t mention that he’s also not too hard on the eyes 😉). Thank you for introducing me to a new artist! You chose the PERFECT Sedaka song for the circumstances … I don’t know how I missed that one in my post!!! Good job!!!

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  7. I had a few Ry Cooder albums at the time, and also some Neil Sedaka ones. (I got stick from my friends for those!) Nice start to March, which is also my birth month. (16th, so Pisces)

    Best wishes, Pete.

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    • A good, eclectic collection, Pete. As I said in the piece I only had one of Neil’s but a full set of Ry’s solo albums. I’m glad this worked well for you.

      And Happy Birthday for the 16th, which I guess you’ll be celebrating in Turkey? That is also my older daughter’s birthday, though we’re trying not to remind her (and ourselves) that she turns 40 this year!

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      • I doubt she’d believe me 🤣

        I hope your holiday isn’t disrupted. As yet it doesn’t seem to have affected Turkey, but there’s still plenty of time for Numpty Trumpty to create more mayhem. Fingers crossed!

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  11. Clive thanks for the info that these two music shows weren’t equivalent in their output:

    Old Grey Whistle Test tv show, which was the late night antidote to the crap played on Top Of The Pops – this was music for grown-ups, and they sometimes took themselves out of the studio to show a full concert,

    I first heard of Ry Cooder in relation to The Buena Vista Social Club, where he went to Cuba to jam with the Maestros of Cuban Music. I watched the doc on it and have the album, which I have listened to MANY times. I found this YouTube, which has one of the songs from the album.

    I hope I’m not smudging one of your musical heroes, but I kind of see him as a poser, similar to Pete Seeger and Paul Simon, appropriating music from other cultures and getting all of the glory for it. I appreciate these guys for making the “Western” World aware of World Music, but I can also see the shady side of it. Sorry if you are offended by my true feelings. Please feel free to delete my comment if you are.

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  12. Sad to hear of Neil’s passing. He was a favorite for many of his songs over the years. I think I’ve heard Ry Cooder when you’ve posted songs before. Interesting to know a little more and hear these songs. I like them. He looks very young in these videos. So much talent to be highly regarded by so many others. 🙂

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    • Always sad when we lose someone, so I thought a little tribute was in order.

      I’ve played numerous Ry Cooder songs over the past five years or so, so you’ve probably seen those. I’m pleased you like these. He was in his early 30s when these videos were recorded, which explains the more youthful look! If you look at his Wikipedia page the list of his collaborations is astounding!

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  16. I have heard about Ry Cooder forever, but I do not know his music well, so it was nice to learn about him and get to listen to him today, Clive. Ry Cooder has a glass eye since he had a childhood accident at age four when he stabbed himself in the left eye with a knife while playing with toy cars, resulting in him losing sight in that eye and wearing a prosthetic for the rest of his life.  Thanks for including the Neil Sedaka tribute, that was really nice.

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  19. First off- I missed something- did you get called out for printing lyrics? I missed it if you talked about this in the recent past.

    Now on to today’s post. I had heard the Elvis version of Little Sister of course but never the version you posted here. Also I must admit I was just typing this while listening to Neil Sedaka- and for a second I forgot who it was and thought-who is the woman singing this! heheheh

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    • No, that wasn’t the problem. I was having trouble with paragraph formatting with SLS posts but not for others, so I tried it without importing large swathes of text and all was well. Now I just use lyric videos or a link to one of the sites that show them.

      Neil Sedaka did have a high pitched voice, didn’t he 🤣

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