The Gateway Trio – Foolish Questions

The gateway Trio are an example of American mainstream folk music in the early sixties, before Bobby, Joan and their bath-avoiding beatnik buddies stormed the citadel. It's the sort of clean-cut, button-down, blue-eyed balderdash that is parodied so, – I dunno, what's sweet and sour at the same time? Sour Gums? – so tartaric-acidly, by Christopher Guest and troupe in A Mighty Wind.

It's from the same cheap & cheesy movie (Hootenanny Hoot) as my previous Johnny Cash Clip. The plot is the eternal movie musical standby: putting on a show. In this case, the show is a Hootenanny Circus. Which I suppose should go some way to explaining why the Gateways are performing... while gently bobbing on a trampoline. have a look:

Download The Gateway Trio – Foolish Questions AVI (rapidshare)

If, for some unaccountable reason, you want to know more about them there's a pocket biography here. Looks like they're still going, too (probably not on the trampoline, though) if the old geezers on this site are the same band.

Johnny Cash – Frankie & Johnny

Johnny Cash? Yes, I've been a big fan of the man in Black for decades. I'm in a tiny minority of Cash fans, though: I really didn't think much of the Rick Rubin American Recordings period. The whole project struck me as a mixture of novelty ("Listen to this old guy sings songs written by young guys!") and car-crash ("Listen to how frail he's getting! How much longer can he last?"). "Hurt" I particularly detested. Lyrically, the song is soaked in egotistical self-pity, expressing a young man's callow emotions, full of self-regard, but without the maturity and reflection to realise that this self-regard is the main obstacle to the resolution of his pain. Such callow words sound frankly grotesque in the mouth of an aging, reflective man like Cash.

So enough of this: time for a bit of vintage Johnny, singing "Frankie & Johnny" from Hootennany Hoot!, a frankly farcical let's-put-a-show-on-right-here musical made in 1963.

Download Johnny Cash – Frankie & Johnny MP3 (rapidshare)

Mike Sarne — Dodgy Looking Bird

Always remember to ask your mother

I had to borrow Revolt into Style from my Dad, for my last bit on Mike Sarne (my copy is lost in the permanent revolution of books in my house). When my mother heard me talking about Sarne, her response was surprising: "Oh, the one who had an affair with Brigitte Bardot?" she said. I was a little taken aback, since I'd found no mention of this in my research. So I shoved my head back into the packet stream, and came out with... not much. There's a mention of an affair in this pretentious twaddle: looks like it happened while they were filming À coeur joie (Two Weeks in September) together.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have sung this song to Bébé:

Download Mike Sarne — Dodgy Looking Bird MP3 (rapidshare)