Music Before the Money

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Saw your picture on a poster in cafe out in Phoenix,
Guess you’re still the sweetheart of the rodeo.
As for me and little Casey, we still make the circuit,
In a one-horse trailer and a mobile home.

- Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold): Dan Seals

He was Born Danny Wayland Seals on Feb. 8, 1948 but got his start in music with the unlikely handle, “England.”

Dan Seals, the singer of both Nights Are Forever Without You as England Dan and Cowboy Logic as Dan Seals, died at the early age of 61 from lymphoma. He was was also the brother of Jim Seals of the popular early-’70′s duo,  Seals and Crofts.

With John Ford Coley, “England Dan” Seals had hits with I’d Really Like to See You Tonight and Nights Are Forever. However the Seals brothers were raised in rural West Texas where his father was an amateur country singer. Dan and Jim grew up watching their father play the roadhouses and country dances and when he was older he used to play on stage with his dad.

When the “pop” thing grew tiresome for him  in 1980 he and Coley parted company and Seals went back to his country roots. His country hits in the ’80s and ’90s with Bop, You Still Move Me, Love on Arrival, and a duet with Marie Osmond called Meet Me in Montana that won them both Vocal Duo of the Year at the Country Music Awards in 1986.

My favorite Dan Seals video was Cowboy Logic and this was right about at the beginning of country music videos. It shows him demonstrating how a cowboy thinks and gets the better of most people. However the most memorable song was Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)s about a rodeo man and his little daughter surviving on the road after his wife deserts them to pursue a career as barre-racer in the rodeo circuit. The song itself is a mini-movie and shows the talent of Dan Seals.

I have England Dan and John Ford Coley on vinyl. So like I usually do when an “old friend” rides off into the sunset I’m going to spin the platter and have a few drinks as I remember the times when I first heard his or her song.

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(From August 2007)

My brother had a chrome Craig tape deck hanging below the console of his new ’70 Ford truck, only his continuous-loop tapes (not to be confused with the new Compact-Cassette decks) had a round hole on the underside. He had bought the package – deck and tapes – from a guy he knew up North and the tapes included; The Tremoloes, The Byrds and The Mamas and Papas. Unlike the newer 8-Track tapes these wonders had only 2 tracks of stereo. With his 3 x4 speakers in the doors there was a not even a hint of bass in the songs.

So the Byrds were the first band that I could listen to while driving – the first albums, that is. “Mr. Tambourine Man” is so ingrained in my very being that I could sing it backward. “Chimes of Freedom” is another favorite and the rest have the same jingly-jangly sound that Jim (now Roger) McGuinn made famous with his Rickenbacker 12-string guitar. He claims he bought one after he saw the The Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night.” Through their many changes – booting out David Crosby being a landmark decision – I followed them, seeing them in concert in ’71 as a long-haired country-rock band belting out “Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” and “Chestnut Mare.” As with their earlier recordings Bob Dylan’s songs were the mainstay of their albums. In fact it is safe to say that Dylan – along with The Byrds and part-time Byrd, Gram Parsons – invented the country-rock genre just as they collaborated to start folk-rock. Parsons came a little later on to the group and stayed a short while. He inspired British bands like The Rolling Stones and Elton John with his country-blues.

McGuinn was such a role model for Tom Petty that Petty’s early sound was a mimic of McGuinn. This is a strange occurrence because McGuinn’s vocal style was an attempt to copy Bob Dylan. (Again, I digress.)

The good news and bad news was that this particular 4-Track deck could also play 8-Tracks which started me on my long and harried relationship with the colored-plastic cartridges. Anyone who has ever owned them knows that you had to be an “8-Track mechanic” too. Because if you left them in the sun or out in subzero weather the tape stretched or wound incorrectly on the spools and you had to cut them open, fix the problem and then tape, yes tape, them back together. My 8-Track collection, at $8 a pop in the early ’70′s, amounted to thousands of dollars. Now I have hundreds of “buggered-up” cartridges that won’t play anymore.

Suggestion for you 8-Track enthusiasts with hundreds of old tapes: Stack your unusable cartridges on your patio and build a wall out of them. The bright colors will be pleasing to the eye. Fashion the wall like you would a small monument and plant a bonzai tree before it. Then, every morning, you can greet the rising sun in the lotus position and hum a few tunes to the long dormant collection of tape that faces you. (Now that’s digressing!)

I still have the 4-Tracks . . . . One of these days I’ll find a player on ebay and crank up the Byrds. I may yet find the bass on the tunes.

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“We regret that the company had to reduce our work force today to meet the economic challenges faced by our industry,” says Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson Guitar Inc. in a statement. “We believe our streamlined team of talented people will continue to serve our valuable customers in an increasingly excellent fashion. We expect to continue to build the finest instruments in the world and lead the industry in quality and innovation.”

With that announcement the vaunted Gibson guitar company, based in Nashville Tennessee, will be laying off 50 workers because world-wide sales have dropped 20%.

So what does this mean? Well, the CEO says that the company will not be “distressed” and that ” . . . layoffs will allow the company to maintain a conservative balance sheet and be positioned for continued market share expansion.”

Employee Feedback Not Good

However, some employees beg to differ. One said:

“There were “more” than 50 of us and we were treated like crap… lied to and mistreated by Henry Juszkiewicz from the day we were employed there. Gibson may be the worst place to work in Nashville… and if the music community knew the lies and deception that are used to make their products, they’d stop buying Gisbon.”

One has even beckoned the great  Les Paul:

“You serve your customers adequately when you lay people off, because others have to pick up the slack. There are no stock holders here. Just greedy Henry and his partner. I would hate for a rich man like him to loose a few pennies. Tell you what- stop paying your lawyers to be laughed out of court with frivolous lawsuits. I don’t care how good your guitars are. Fender hasn’t had layoffs yet. I’ll buy a samsom guitar before I buy a gibson. Les Paul needs to get on a plane and crotch-punch this guy.”

The General Gist?

It is no small secret that Gibson has jacked the prices of their guitars almost out of sight and many believe this is because Henry Juszkiewicz believed that demand was going to be high based on the sales of their re-issues and the skyrocketing vintage market. In other words, YouTube and Guitar Hero have fed the kids’ appetite for “real guitars” and not knock-off even if the knock-offs are just as good. For example,  new Hummingbird (built in Boseman, Montana) will cost you $3500 while a knock-off is around $700.

A Final Shot From a Musician

“Surprising considering how much they’ve jacked up their prices in the past few years. Guess people aren’t quite as willing to shell out three or four grand for overpriced pieces of wood anymore.”

You be the judge.

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When you packed your early-1970′s-era band gear into a dance hall or lodge that was built in the 1930′s – and included an early 1950′s upgraded electrical panel – you expected maybe four plugs for the whole hall. If your cords were grounded (three-prong plugs) you plugged them into ungrounded cords so they would fit into the two-slot receptacles. Somtimes you’d get away without blowing something.

Most stages had two plugs so two amplifiers could go into one receptacle and the P.A. and the bass amp could go in the other. If you had show lights then long, long extension cords were needed to run into the kitchen and office. Most of the time you were not allowed to go in there so they were either not used or pluggedinto the back of an amplifier.

Once the gear was loaded in and set up the sound check didn’t matter a whole lot because the rooms were usually “live,” meaning that the sound would hit the wooden floor and walls and the take off in every direction. Because until there were people in the hall you couldn’t really get a handle on the volume. Now the people didn’t care but the elderly caretaker (every hall had one) would shake his or her fist and try to scream over the din to get you to “turn it down a bunch of notches!” It’s too bad This is Spinal Tap was not out at the time. I always wanted to tell these guardians that “Our amps go up to 11!”

The first people into the dance were usually girls. They were called “wallflowers” or some other unflattering term because they didn’t have dates. The same was not true for the guys. They came “stag” which really meant they didn’t have dates either. However, it was implied by the guys that “We could get a date if we wanted.” No one believed it. It was just  another dance hall myth.

After the place filled up and the dance floor was pounding the police would come in and wander about. In our area we had Mounties - RCMP – and they were there as much to check out the ladies as to look for illegal bottles.

Around three hours into the dance the first fight would start. It was usually pre-ordained and most of the time it was pushed outside. The rule for all bands was : “Don’t stop playing!” This was because the silence drew attention to the fighters who would then put on a really big show and usually draw others in.

This was about the time the first fuses began to blow – because we kept cranking up the volume. Replacement fuses? No way – try tin foil and pennies. (Yes we were creating our own firetrap!)

The last waltz was usually, Hey Joe by Hendrix or Summertime and then we’d end off with a medley of Chuck Berry tunes. Yup, always leave them wanting more. Then came the load-out which wasnt bad for us: one amp each and a guitar, plus a bag to hold the cords. The P.A. had an amplifiers and two column speakers. The drummer took the longest to tear down.

Once outside we usually saw the aftermath of the fight, or fights: crying girls, the revolving red lights on the tops of two police cars and one or two people puking.

Yup, those were the classic dances!