max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#515: kate and anna mcgarrigle - foolish you (1977)

kate mcgarrigle died yesterday, and the world already feels less sweet and tender.

she and her sister anna sang songs that sounded like they’d been grown in flower beds—they’re the only people i can think of whose harmony sounded like christmas, campfires, chaucer and champagne.

and they were at the center of a little world of music that in its own quiet way was godly: not only had kate been married to the folk singer loudon wainwright iii (whose sad, broken and perfect first three albums give the sense that he probably wasn’t a great dad to their son, rufus), she and anna spent decades singing with emmylou harris, and on their first two albums alone played with little feat’s lowell george, the rolling stones’ bobby keys, the velvet underground’s john cale, fairport convention’s dave mattacks, and the bluegrass god bill monroe.

“it’s my town but i had to leave it, and head south where the climate is kind,” kate sang in her 20s, “and if a time comes when i’m feeling better, i’ll be back with the birds in the spring.”

#485: taj mahal - leavin’ trunk (live, 1968)

as far as very gorgeous and very barbiturate-soaked performances from the rolling stones’ famous latenight late-60s rock and roll circus goes, john lennon’s yer blues may have gotten the intro from mick jagger and the back-up from eric clapton, the who’s a quick one while he’s away may have gotten the three-part harmonies and cod pieces and sparkly black blouses, but it’s taj mahal’s version of the old folk song corrine, corrina and leavin’ trunk that sound like an empty barroom at sunrise.

#439: ike and turner tina - honky tonk woman (1970)

the back-up singers stole the show last time, but this version has the thickness and the blood. tina turner’s growls are plump and pelvic—monumentally unsanitary.

#438: ike and tina turner - honky tonk woman (1971)

how about those three back-up singers! their hemlines are satanic, but they sing like a church choir.

#418: the rolling stones - hey negrita (1976) (dir. michael lindsay-hogg)

the thing that’s genuinely extraordinary about this isn’t mick jagger’s green mariachi suit (with hand-fan), the soft rattletrap crunch of keith richard’s rhythm guitar (you can practically hear the 22 grams of heroin that he’d be caught with a year later oozing from his hands), ron wood’s literally sparkly slide guitar, billy preston’s tickle-fingered piano or even his romantic dance with mick at the finale—it’s that the rolling stones managed to make a mid-70s funky reggae record.

#388: rolling stones - jumpin’ jack flash (1968)

brian jones’ dinner-plate sunglasses, mick jagger’s tri-colored warpaint and charlie watts’ out-of-character guyliner in the jumpin’ jack flash video are all nice, but nothing’s more important than the fact that the song’s about keith richards’ gardener.

#207: ike and tina turner - i’ve been loving you (from gimme shelter, 1970)

the six words ike sings to tina a minute and a half into this are more heartbreaking than anything in otis redding’s monterey version, more intense than any of the rolling stones’ altamont numbers during gimme shelter, more catastrophic than watching a biker stab a stones fan during under my thumb, and way more lurid than the famous oral sex call-and-response miming.

ike turner was colonel parker, but four times more talented and five times more violent. you sort of have to turn away when he tells his (abused) co-star/wife that she can’t bring herself to leave him “cause you ain’t ready to DIE.”

#62: the ronnettes - be my baby / shout (1963)

sometimes it’s good not to know too much about your favorite bands. and if you want to enjoy the grinning, glowing, gleaming, gleeful innocence of the best pop song ever written, be my baby, it’s definitely very good to ignore everything about producer phil spector.

he wrote it for his girl group the ronnettes, whose lead singer became ronnie spector when they married. a few fun facts about that relationship: he made her do forty-two takes of this song; he forbade her from speaking to the rolling stones while the ronnettes toured with them; he had a glass-topped gold coffin in his basement which he promised to keep her in if she ever tried to leave; he hid her shoes to keep her from going—and so when she eventually left, she left barefoot.

so that means when she sings “be my little baby! say you’ll be my darling! be my baby now!” she was singing to her persecutor. and he wrote the song, which means he put those cute little words in her mouth.

but just those first four drum hits—let alone all the rumbling brass that comes afterward, or that celestial hook in the chorus—make up for all the cruelty in the world. (maybe not the gold coffin part, though.)

#35: the rolling stones - not fade away (1963)

i’ve been thinking very deeply about this, and i realized that i forgot about the single sleaziest rolling stones era, sleazier than 1969 or even 1972: their debut.

maybe now it all looks a little clean cut, but mick jagger’s rubber legs made teenagers scream like they were being physically assaulted, and his wide-eyed maraca shaking was somehow massively threatening too.

on the downside, the stones ripped not fade away off from buddy holly (who ripped it off from bo diddly). but where would the ramones be without this version? it’s 1 minute, 58 seconds of three-chord, snarled-lip pop. (and, seriously, sheryl crow’s evil revlon colorist not-fade-away tv ad would never have existed either.)

#34: rolling stones - tumbling dice (1972)

maybe the only thing better than late-60s, boozy, honky tonk stones is early-70s cokey, cocky, rock ‘n’ roll stones.

it’s the eternal dichotomy! the south vs. the north, white vs. black, blood vs. wine, drunks vs. junkies, sex vs. sleep, the fender stratoscaster vs. the fender telecaster, ennui vs. energy, vice vs. purity, poetry vs. violence… let it bleed vs. exile on main street. or something like that.

either way, tumbling dice in 1972 was even slezier than honky tonk woman in 1969. and sleaze pleases the ears.

#33: the rolling stones - honky tonk woman (1969)

you know what’s a crime? there were two films from the rolling stones’ rock and roll circus this weekend, but neither featured the stones themselves.

but on the scale of moral culpability, the fact that the rolling stones played this concert in front of 250,000 londoners just two days after their guitarist brian jones died is a tad worse. (on the bright side, mick jagger read shelley as a eulogy, and, you know, released a load of butterflies).

and one day later, honky tonk woman, my favorite stones single, was offficialy released. meeting gin-soaked barroom queens in memphis, or laying divorcees in new york city, was never quite the same again.

the single went to number one—until it was replaced by sugar, sugar by the archies. the 60s were a weird time.

#30: the who - a quick one while he’s away (1968)

you know what? i’m not crazy about the who. my classic rock station growing up, played that teenage wasteland song way too often, and it really got on my nerves.

still, this song from the rolling stones’ rock and roll circus is a thing of beauty. the who played so much better than the stones during the stones’ own concert film that mick jagger wouldn’t let the show air on the bbc.

but is roger daltrey wearing a cod piece? and what’s going on with keith moon’s sparkly black blouse? and how are they so good at sweaty three-man singing?

#29: the dirty mac - yer blues (1968)

while the rolling stones were filming a bad tv concert movie called rock and roll circus, john lennon decided to call himself winston legthigh, and he started a one-day band with eric clapton on guitar, keith richards on bass, and jimi hendrix bandmate mitch mitchell on drums. (yoko ono was there too, stage left in a black sack).

“john, i want to talk to you about your new group, the dirty mac, which you’ve got together for tonight’s show,” mick jagger says in a creepy american accent. and then comes the best song introduction of all time: “yer blues, john. yer blues, john. yer blues, john.”

the first time i heard this song i went around singing, “sad and lonely! want to die!” until someone asked me to stop. really, this is the beatles’ most furious song—and maybe better than helter skelter.

and! there’s a four-camera version too. trippy.