Bring Out Your Dead 2008 – Volume 1

When Richard Wright left us for his “Great Gig in the Sky” back in September, I started thinking about the impact that Pink Floyd’s music had on me when I was growing up, especially the earlier material where Wright’s spacey keyboard style danced wildly with Nick Mason’s tom-foolery drumming.

I had intended to put up a memorial post for Wright, but I was already working on another project, so I visited fellow basement-dweller Blind Joe Death (BJD) and asked him to put together a memorial compilation.

Several weeks passed before we got together again, and by then a dozen more notables had also died: Paul Newman, Alton Ellis, Neal Hefti, Frankie Venom, Levi Stubbs, Merl Saunders, Yma Sumac, Jimmy Carl Black, Byron Lee, Miriam Makeba, Mitch Mitchell, and Odetta Holmes. I also discovered that two music legends I wasn’t familiar with – R&B singer Nappy Brown, and session drummer extraordinaire, Earl Palmer – had died back to back in September.

There seemed to be a plague preying upon artists, musicians in particular. Two members of The Flames (famous for creating the rock-steady reggae rhythm) and both of Jimi Hendrix’s drummers had died. Here in Toronto we were especially hard hit, losing Jeff Healey (blind blues guitarist and jazz trumpeter) to cancer at only 41; folk hero Willie P. Bennett; punk-rocker Frankie Venom (lead singer of Teenage Head); folk guitarist Red Shea (worked regularly with Gordon Lightfoot); and Kenny MacLean of the 1980s pop band, Platinum Blonde.

Artists were dying faster than the global economy. I was reminded of that famous scene from Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” where the cart comes through town to collect all those who have died from the plague:

“Bring out your dead!”
“Bring out your dead!”

BJD and I began discussing the idea of a year-end memorial post and I began compiling a list of those who had been struck down. I had already put together a few memorial posts during 2008, including a special dedication to Utah Phillips and George Carlin, so I figured a larger memorial couldn’t be much more difficult, but before long the list had more than 75 names on it, and I was still gathering information!

That’s when it really hit me: 2008 was a year of great losses. So many musicians, actors, comedians, and political figures had died. How could I possibly honour them all in a cohesive fashion?

I knew it was going to be a long and arduous process. I also knew that it couldn’t be accomplished in a single CD compilation, so I sent part of the list to BJD and told him to start working on a second compilation right away. Then I started collecting as many recordings as I could find from albums, movies, and television. I put the body of incredibly diverse material together and started shuffling it around. I had to figure out what I was going to keep, what I was going to discard, and how I was going to organize what remained into something that flowed reasonably well.

The volume of material was intimidating, so rather than worry about trying to honour everyone’s memory, I decided to concentrate on something that flowed well. I circulated several “draft” versions to friends and asked them for feedback.

As I was working on the final edits, I got an invitation from Bill Whitehead at CFRU (93.3 FM in Guelph, Ontario) to be interviewed on his weekly Saturday show, “Voyage to the Great Attractor.” He broadcasted a 22-minute highlight of “Bring Out Your Dead” on January 10th that you can listen to here.

After many weeks and much work, volume 1 is ready for download. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did making it. I think you will find that it is an enjoyable way to remember those who have passed. May they all knock ‘em dead (pun intended) in their final performance of “The Great Gig in the Sky.”

Tune in next week for Volume 2.

Track Listing:

1) Jim McKay – Wide World of Sports – 0:33
2) Neal Hefti & Count Basie – Shoutin’ Again – 3:43
3) Harvey Korman – Blazing Saddles – 0:54
4) Nappy Brown – Don’t Be Angry – 2:24
5) Earle Hagen – Andy Griffith Theme – 0:29
6) Eddy Arnold – That’s How Much I Love You – 2:58
7) Odetta Holmes – Sail Away Ladies – 2:17
8) Paul Newman – Cool Hand Luke – 1:10
9) Odetta Holmes – Timber – 3:11
10) Miriam Makeba – Amampondo – 1:56
11) Miriam Makeba – The Click Song – 2:30
12) Willie P. Bennett – Summer Dreams, Winter Sleep – 3:11
13) Pink Floyd – Remember a Day (featuring Rick Wright on keyboards and vocals, and an introduction by William F. Buckley Jr.) – 4:33
14) Byron Lee – Can You Hear Me – 2:12
15) Byron Lee – Girl I’ve Got a Date – 2:47
16) Alton Ellis & The Flames – Rocksteady – 2:44
17) Utah Phillips – Direct Action – 4:46
18) Eldon Rathburn – City Faces (Phillip Agee remix) – 2:11
19) Geronimo Black – Quaker’s Earthquake – 2:40
20) Charlton Heston – Planet of the Apes – 0:17
21) Jimmy McGriff – The Bird Wave – 3:57
22) Jimi Hendrix – Manic Depression (featuring Mitch Mitchell on drums) – 3:43
23) Geronimo Black – Low Ridin’ Man (featuring Jimmy Carl Black) – 4:18
24) Buddy Miles (MST) – Bad Bad Misses – 6:40
25) Grateful Dead – Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (featuring Martin Fierro on sax) – 3:15
26) Willie P. Bennett – My Pie – 2:55
27) Paul Newman – Plastic Jesus – 1:43
28) Laugh-In Says Goodbye to Dick Martin – 0:37

Dedicated to:

Jim McKay [86] – sportscaster for ABC’s Wide World of Sports
Neal Hefti [85] – jazz trumpeter and composer
Harvey Korman [81] – actor, comedian
Nappy Brown [78] – 1950s R&B singer
Earle Hagen [89] – composer
Eddy Arnold [89] – country singer
Odetta Holmes [77] – folk singer known as the “Voice of the Civil Right’s movement.”
Paul Newman [83] – actor
Miriam Makeba [76] – South African folk singer
Willie P. Bennett [56] – Canadian folk music singer-songwriter
William F. Buckley Jr. [82] – conservative political pundit and former CIA agent
Richard Wright [65] – keyboardist and singer, Pink Floyd
Byron Lee [73] – founder of ska/reggae/calipso band, The Dragonaires
Alton Ellis [70] – founder of The Flames and the rock-steady reggae beat
Utah Phillips [73] – anarchist, folk singer, presidential candidate, and professional “loafer”
Phillip Agee [72] – CIA case officer and author of “Inside the Company: CIA Diary”
Eldon Rathburn [82] – composer of Labyrinthe for Expo-67
Jimmy Carl Black [70] – founder, and “Indian of the group”, The Mothers of Invention
Charlton Heston [84] – actor, activist, former president of the National Rifle Association
Jimmy McGriff [72] – hard-bop and soul-jazz organist
Mitch Mitchell [62] – drummer, Jimi Hendrix Experience
Buddy Miles [60] – drummer, Jimi Hendrix, The Band of Gypsies
Martin Fierro [66] – tenor saxophonist: jazz, freeform rock, avant-garde
Dick Martin [86] – comedian and host of Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”