Every morning during breakfast, I play music for our guests. I don’t play an instrument; instead, I choose tunes to pipe into the breakfast room and set the mood for the morning. This is serious business, and I put much thought into each morning’s selection: the right music sets the tone for the day, reflecting more than just my own tastes. How became not only the sous chef/dishwasher/disc jockey of the Auberge and what kind of music I choose is a story that stretches back to my inappropriate youth.
In the early morning hours of April 14, 1985, I locked myself into the on-air studio of WMEB-FM, the University of Maine’s student-run radio station, and began playing music that pleased me. It was a sophomoric act, a juvenile stunt, and although it was just after 3 in the morning, there were a lot of people listening. On a sprawling college campus like U-Maine Orono’s, there are always lots of people awake and listening in the darkness of Sunday mornings. And that was the problem.
That I’d locked myself into the on-air studio wasn’t a problem; as the scheduled disc jockey for that time slot, I was following protocol. At the time I was a junior at UMO, and a journalism/broadcasting major in love with radio thanks to my Boston roots, which were nurtured by the irreverence of Charles Laquidara and WBCN-FM. The problem was that I was supposed to be playing jazz--specifically jazz fusion, that electrified genre made most famous by Miles Davis’s 1970 album Bitches Brew. Other notables on the playlist included Weather Report, Pat Metheny, and Chick Corea. In other words, all the stuff I hated.
So instead I played The Clash, Elvis Costello, Aerosmith, and even the synth/pop band Animotion’s hit “Obsession.” Anything but jazz fusion. The program director wasn’t amused, and I soon lost that coveted 3 to 6 Sunday morning slot on WMEB. But the experience forged my taste in music (my years at the Snake Ranch notwithstanding), and informed my music selections when I later worked as a DJ for real money.
Fast forward to the 21st century and now I’m faced with the task of providing the background music for breakfast-goers. The easy default is some kind of inoffensive jazz: The Duke, Oscar Peterson--maybe even Satchmo. Stay away from the be-boppers and dissonant improvisors. They’re great, just not what I want to play at breakfast; they go better with vodka and cigarettes than orange juice and oatmeal.
Fortunately, I’ve got a decent backlog of music on my iTunes, and I’ve been able to offer a collection as eccentric as the Auberge. This week has featured French chanteuse Patricia Kaas, Je te dis vous, the aforementioned Oscar Peterson, Warren Zevon (with Warren you have to be careful of the corrosive, oftentimes sardonic timbre of his music, so I played Reconsider Me:The Love Songs, which was a big hit), and the best selling album of the 21st century, The Beatles’ 1. Up next is Sean Lyons’ Roar of Lyons, which is one of the boldest jazz albums of the last ten years. I also discovered an album in waiting in my iTunes collection: The Ks.
While combing through my music, I discovered that of all the thousands of songs I own, only 12 begin with the letter K. Since I’m partial to that letter, I thought I’d collect them all into one album, and put them in the regular Auberge breakfast music rotation. So here’s the track listing for The Ks, along with my comments.
1. “K.C. Blues,” Charlie Parker. This tune is off of my Essential Charlie Parker album. If you’re not a big fan of the early bebop pioneered by Parker and his crony Dizzy Gillespie, this is a nice way to ease into the style. “K.C. Blues” is largely devoid of the asymmetric phrasing and fast-paced melodic riffing that characterizes much of the bebop style, though at about the 2:40 mark Bird drops back into the song and gives a little taste of what it’s all about.
2. “Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey,” The Beatles. This is actually a medley of two songs. The Leiber & Stoller classic “Kansas City” first hit #1 in the charts when William Harrison sang it in 1959. The song has been recorded more than 300 times. “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey,” is a Richard Penniman (better known as Little Richard) original. In 1962, The Beatles were performing at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, when Little Richard, fresh from his return from gospel music, arrived to share the stage with them. LR coached The Beatles on their stage act, including teaching Paul how to imitate his instantly recognizable “woo” holler, which is featured on this song.
3. “Kashmir,” Led Zepplin. Okay, so the grinding, nerve-wracking assault of this song might not make the best sonic backdrop for croissants and homemade jam, but it’s a K. That driving guitar chord progression was said to have inspired Robert Plant to write the lyrics after a trip to southern Morocco. “Kashmir” is from LZ’s album Physical Graffiti.
4. “Keep Me In Your Heart,” Warren Zevon. This is the gut-wrenching plea by Zevon, from his final album, The Wind, which he recorded in the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003 immediately after being diagnosed with mesothelioma, which eventually claimed his life in September, 2003. The song isn’t so much a request to remember him as it is a reminder that he’ll always be there in the wind. The song pushed his final album to number 12 on Bilboard’s Top 200 album chart, his highest showing since Excitable Boy reached number 8 in 1978.
5. “Keep On Chooglin,” Credence Clearwater Revival. From their 1969 Bayou Country LP, this song is one of CCR’s more famous jams, chugging along for nearly eight minutes. “Keep On Chooglin” was overshadowed by the more popular “Born on the Bayou” and the #2 hit single “Proud Mary.”
6. “Keeping Out of Mischief Now,” Louis Armstrong. This comes from a great album called Satch Sings Fats, featuring Satchmo breaking out the Fats Waller songbook. For the uninitiated, this is a great representation of Armstrong’s style, featuring his crackling trumpet contrasting his gravelly voice, and a host of other instrument solos.
7. “Key to the Highway,” Derek and the Dominoes. This song is what’s known as a blues standard. First recorded by Charles Segar in 1940, versions of the song had been sung for decades by the early bluesmen of the South. Eric Clapton’s version comes from his Crossroads collection that I own. It’s one of the best of Clapton’s live recordings.
8. “The Kids Are Alright,” The Who. Originally released on the band’s first album, My Generation (1965), the song name was also used for The Who’s rockumentary film released in 1979. This song, along with “My Generation,” defined the Mod era and announced The Who as major players in the British Invasion.
9. “Kingdom of Days,” Bruce Springsteen. From Springsteen’s critically acclaimed Working on a Dream album, this song’s themes reflect new level of sophistication for the Boss. It still contains Springsteen’s trademark second person POV, but it slips into the first person plural and singular, invoking a totality of commitment.
10. “KItty’s Back,” Bruce Springsteen. By the time the Boss released The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, Springsteen was almost there, and by that I mean he was almost at the point of writing the kinds of sprawling classics epitomized on his next album, Born to Run. “Kitty’s Back” is one of those songs, featuring perhaps the most recognizable guitar intro in Springsteen’s repertoire, along with the kind of raucous story line seen in later classics like “Jungleland” and “Racing in the Streets.”
11, 12, 13: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” by Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Warren Zevon. About the only version of this song that I don’t have is Guns’n’Roses. All three versions are excellent, but I’m partial to Zevon’s, if only because of his lifelong commitment to religious criticism in his songwriting. Some Zevon fans thought he was selling out by including this song on his final album, and you can attribute it to the old axiom “There are no atheists in fox holes,” but I prefer to believe that Zevon was just giving a nod to something he was about to face.
14. “Know Your Onion,” The Shins. I don’t remember how this song or this band ended up among the 1,312 songs of my iTunes, but it’s a catchy, up-tempo tune that owes its jangling guitars to The Beatles and The Byrds.
15. “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand,” The Beatles. This is the German language version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” released in Germany in 1964. If you think The Beatles speak the German language exceptionally well, you’re right. They spent the better parts of two years living and performing in Hamburg, Germany. The B-side of this single was “Sie Liebt Dich,” also known as “She Loves You.”
And there you have it: The Ks, an original compilation, and extended meditation on music in the morning at the Auberge de Stowe.
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