Mashup in 5/4: Take Five Meets The River Man
There aren’t many tunes that have their rhythm is 5/4 time. These two are probably the most well-known—The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 recording of Take Five; and River Man, from the late British sing-songwriter Nick Drake, recorded in 1969.
I’ve got a supplentary source for each tune as well—pianist Brad Mehldau’s solo recording of River Man, from a 2003 concert in Japan; and Grover Washington, Jr’s version of Take Five, from 1992.
With help from my trusty Ableton Live software, here’s the mix.
(Mashup art by RichLost)
Seal vs. Dylan: Beginnings On The Watchtower
These two songs are not only in the same key, their tempos are only a couple of bpm’s apart. I’ve been wanting to mix “Watchtower” because it is one of the few Dylan tunes that actually has a straight-hard beat through the entire tune. The Seal tune came to mind recently when my wife and I cut the rug on a Friday night and spent a few hours in our living room dancing to all kinds of stuff. Man, I remember when that first Seal disc came out. It was one of those discs that everyone seemed to be playing, whether you were at a party, a friends house, a bar, or the radio. You couldn’t escape it. And it was great!
A Marvin Gaye Samba
I recently saw an amazing YouTube video of Marvin Gaye singing an acapella version of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. I recorded the audio part of the video, and set out to find a way to put a different instrumental spin on the tune. And like my previous mix of Ryan Adams’s Wonderwall, the answer was found with the sounds of Brazil.
Celso Fonseca is a guitarist, singer, composer, and record producer, and has played with just about every significant Brazilian artist, from Gilberto Gil to Bebel Gilberto. His voice is quite similar to Caetano Veloso and his guitar playing has the similar style of Baden Powell. His first U.S. release, Natural (2003), features a cool instrumental called Buteco, which is the basic instrumental track under Marvin. In previous versions of this mix, I also included the original keyboard hook from “Grapevine”, but upon further listening, it came across as a bit too obvious, so I took it out. The end result is a totally new musical arrangement.
This tune was mixed on my laptop in a small apartment about 50 yards away from the ocean in the beautiful village of Hana, on the east coast of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. An exquisite place!
A Train Ride Into The Bowels Of Your Imagination
Here’s a tune that still grabs me after 40 years. (Like most Baby Boomers attending college in the late 60’s, S&G were in high rotation on the dormroom turntable). The song is a quick sketch, and portrays an introverted, aspiring graffiti artist, trying in the simplest way possible to “make his mark”. The tune ends with the killer line, “To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.”
For this mix, I used the live 1970 S&G recording of the tune, mixed with a few bars of Pat Metheny’s “Last Train Home”, blended with a hodgepodge of field recordings that I’ve collected through the years. Trying to provide an ambient context to the lyrical Paul Simon-penned folk tune.
Rehab (Winehouse) vs Sidewinder (Sample)
Here’s Ms. Amy Winehouse, fronting Joe Sample’s “Soul Committee” band, layering her hooky hit on top of
The Sidewinder, a classic jazz tune, originally done by Lee Morgan in 1965. Sample’s recording comes from the awesome 1994 disc
Did You Feel That?, which was the most “Crusader-like” effort since the band’s dissolution in the 80’s. (And yes, Sample has reformed the band for a few tours within the last few years.) Dig the groove, y’all.
Peter Gabriel vs. Derek Trucks
I was wallowing for a while with a bunch of song combinations that just didn’t seem to come together. It was nice to finally stumble into these two songs, which click together really well (for reasons all its own). Once I began the mix, I fell way deep into the rabbit hole.
This cool Peter Gabriel tune was initially released on the soundtrack of Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia. Volunteered Slavery was written and first recorded by the legendary Rahsaan Roland Kirk. You can find the Derek Trucks Band version on their brilliant Songlines disc.
Elvis the Queen
I once won a karaoke contest a few years ago, singing Crazy Little Thing Called Love. I picked the tune because I had just visited Graceland in Memphis and was in a real “Elvis” mood. The tune by Queen always reminded me of something that Elvis would’ve done. And it also seems remarkably similar to Don’t Be Cruel. To really get the boogie woogie feel of it all, I went to the source—the great Louis Jordan recording of Caldonia, from the 1940’s.
