They say the heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland. But America is the homeland of rock and roll; it started here, it was perfected here, and it is today an inextricable part of American culture. Oh, there are some great bands from other parts of the world, from Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones to the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Scorpions. But when it comes to rock and roll, America still is the home of the greats - as evidence, I offer the bands that originate in Europe and move to America for the contracts and the concert venues.
Some songs, though, just stand out. Some of that is due to artists hopping around music styles, and adapting as they go - take America's Songwriter, Bob Dylan, who started in folk and ended up in rock, dabbling in blues and a half-dozen other styles along the way.
But, like most people, I do have some favorites, and those fit into some varied sub-genres. Here are mine.
1) Greatest lament: The Band, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." This version is from Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz," and if you haven't seen that great film, you must. This song is a classic lament, a cry of pain from a young man who fought and lost. It's not PC now, I suppose, but that doesn't matter. It's a great song, and if you listen - really listen - it's heartbreaking.
2) Greatest guitar solo: The Grateful Dead, "Eyes of the World." This version of the old Dead tune comes from the live album "Without A Net," which was recorded on the same tour (although a different performance) than when my wife and I saw them, only weeks after we returned from Operation Desert Storm. Jerry Garcia's guitar work in this is amazing; when you listen to the Buddha of Rock playing, you can almost see crystal-clear mountain stream water chuckling over a clean bed of pebbles, and the leaves in the trees rattling gently in the breeze. It's that good.
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3) Greatest railroad song: Arlo Guthrie, "City of New Orleans." Arlo (nowadays, I might add, a solid libertarian) wasn't the first to do this song, but he did it best. It's a quintessentially American tune, from the words "Good morning, America, how are you? Don't you know me? I'm your native son." True story: My lifelong best friend was, for quite a few years, a conductor on the old Illinois Central Railroad and the other lines it morphed into over the years. One of his career goals was, one time, to be the conductor of The City of New Orleans, which the IC was still running at the time. He didn't get to do it, but I bet it would have been a gas. Amtrak still runs a train by that name today, but it wouldn't have been the same, and my buddy is retired now. But, as the saying goes, the song remains the same.
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4) Greatest ballad: Bob Dylan, "Isis." I once commented to my wife that I could have written a novel based on this seven-minute epic ballad; instead, I wrote a piece that may be a short novella or a long short story, depending on who you consult. (The short story collection that includes that work, incidentally, will be released this summer.) "Isis" is a long song, a tale of a man sent out into the world by his true love, to make his way on his own in a cold wilderness - and, in the end, how he returns to her. I've always thought that "Desire" was Dylan's best album, and this song is one of the reasons why.
5) Greatest iconic concert tune: George Thorogood, "Bad to the Bone." This was the leader of the Delaware Destroyers' signature song, and it was great fun to see him perform it in concert. My aforementioned old friend and I saw him in 1986, at an old renovated movie theater in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; George excelled in such small venues, where he could interact with the audience. One of the better bits was George and the band opening the second set with a cover of the "George of the Jungle" theme, but we were, of course, listening for him to break into "Bad to the Bone" - and George didn't disappoint us.
Cleveland may be the heart of rock and roll, but America is the soul of rock and roll. Rock is as varied as America, as distinctive as America, and frankly as rough-and-tumble as America. It's our music. It's a big part of who we are as a people - and it helped bring down the Soviet Union. Rock and roll shaped several generations, and it's still as much America's genre as it was when Buddy Holly and Elvis were touring in 1955.
These five tunes, mind you, are just my favorites; I'm sure every reader has their own ideas and their own suggestions. So let's see them - the comments are yours!
