Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...

Subject: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:03 PM

...the absolute shits!!!

Ya'll find it and tell me it ain't one of the 5 top alt country songs ever recorded...

Steve Earle, John Prine and Buddy Miller are the 3 top alt country songwriters...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Jeri
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:07 PM

He recorded the Utah Phillips song? Got a YouTube for it?

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:07 PM

Utah Phillips wrote it. He should get some credit.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:09 PM

No, Jer, I ain't got half the pudder literation as a slug... I got the CD, however, and maybe you can find it somewhere...

Great song...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:11 PM

Great song, Utah...

Buddy still is in the top 3 alt country song writers in my book but...

...great song, Utah!!!

But ya'll still need to listen to Buddy's version... It is the shits...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:18 PM

Post a link so we can hear it.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Wesley S
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:18 PM

Yeah - I love just about everything Buddy comes in contact with. He even makes Robert Plant sound good.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Jeri
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:20 PM

Here's Buddy Miller singing Rock Salt & Nails.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: frogprince
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:23 PM

It's on EwwTube. Not to knock Miller's take, but there are covers on there by Rosalee Sorrels, Joe Ely, and Joan Baez; all quite distinct, and I'd be hard put to say which one I like best. Waylon Jennings is there too, but I just can't say that I like what he did with it quite as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:24 PM

Just listened to it. Awesome. Just plug in 'Buddy Miller + rock, salt and nails. First one up.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:48 PM

Yeah, if anyone does it better than Buddy and his ol' lady then I'd love to hear it...

Ya' say Waylon did it, f-prince???

Sheet fire!!! I'd have to hear that... I love Waylon... I do couple three of his songs...

No matter... I didn't know this song until Buddy Miller and I fully plan of working it up and see what I can do with it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:54 PM

A couple of people in my song circle sing it- a powerful song in its bitterness.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:07 PM

Boy, Waylon does a really different take on this one: Waylon.

And, here is Rosalie Sorrells.

And, here is Joan Baez whose rendition, I have to say, appeals to me much more than the others.

J.D. Crowe sounds pretty good, too, imo.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: open mike
Date: 05 May 11 - 02:36 AM

they do good harmony to this!
I am quite sure that the first version of this i heard was by Kate Wolf

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Amergin
Date: 05 May 11 - 02:50 AM

I love the one that Taylor Whiteside did on Singing Through The Hard Times.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Amergin
Date: 05 May 11 - 03:02 AM

Here's another wonderful version: Carl Johnson

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: pdq
Date: 05 May 11 - 03:20 AM

The J. D. Crowe and the New South version has Tony Rice singing lead. He is usually about as good as it gets.

Steve Young did it about 1970, making him perhaps the first Alt Country singer ever.

Kate Wolf does the song, trading lead voice with her bass player. Works for me.

There is a CD called "Red Hot and Country" that came out in the 1990s. You can get a copy for about $1 on eBay any day you want one. It has Folk, Country and Rock people working together and most cuts are really good.

However, the Sammy Kershaw version of "Fire and Rain" is simply awful. I suggest you re-record the songs you like on another CD and skip the few stinkers.

Johnny Cash doing Dylan's "Forever Young" is slow and plodding but powerful. Other song have Jackson Browne, Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Matea, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Alison Krauss, et al.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Dharmabum
Date: 05 May 11 - 07:06 AM

Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin do a version on their Heart Songs cd.
Buddy & Julie's version is probably my favorite of all that I've heard.

DB.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: kendall
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:09 AM

I vote for Joan Baez on this one. She does it straight without messing with the melody.Never liked Jody Stecher's voice.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:14 AM

Here's one of my favorite songs by Buddy and Julie with some great photographs as a backdrop:


Ellis County

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Midchuck
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:16 AM

Whatever one thinks about Stecher's singing, I think his guitar intro to RS&N on "Heart Songs" should be required listening for every guitar player, but especially every bluegrassy flatpicker. It's a textbook illustration of making beautiful music with as few notes as possible, rather than with as many as possible.

Peter

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: pdq
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:20 AM

Jody Stecher does the "string bending" thing so often that it can distract from the music.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Chris in Portland
Date: 05 May 11 - 10:09 AM

I think the best version EVAH was by Betsy Redhead, with the Chicago group Redhead in the '70's. Any Chicago folkies agree with me?

We haven't heard from Art Thieme for a while.

Art, hope you're out there and well.

Chris

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: kendall
Date: 05 May 11 - 11:54 AM

I agree Peter. He is an excellent picker. Kate is a sweetheart.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: olddude
Date: 05 May 11 - 12:04 PM

my buddie Barry and his nephews doing a great job on this song I think
rock salt and nails

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 11 - 03:09 PM

Buddy has been a hero of mine for some years.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 11 - 03:32 PM

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/alpha/b.html

You can download a number of Buddy Miller shows from here.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: GUEST,Roger in Baltimore
Date: 05 May 11 - 04:29 PM

I heard Utah discuss this song once on the radio. It resulted from a broken relationship (duh!). He said then that he did not sing it any more because it was too angry.

Well, it certainly is an angry song. It is obvious from the numerous covers that many others found it had a strong message for them and others. I grew up in a family where anger was seldom, if ever, expressed. Of course, it was there as it is in many families. I'm attracted to angry songs and I certainly like this one. Especially, I like how it moves from such a calm opening that gradually relates a sad experience and then briefly teases with a calm, country classical last verse that turns violent at the end.

As an aside, I had heard growing up about people chasing people out of their gardens with shotguns filled with rock salt and nails. The idea being to break open the robber's skin with the nails and then increase the pain by putting salt in the wounds. Who dreams that stuff up!?! Supposedly it would not be fatal. Anyone have any experience (at either end) with a shotgun loaded with "Rock Salt and Nails?

Roger in Baltiore

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Midchuck
Date: 05 May 11 - 05:40 PM

Rock salt, maybe, if you had an old muzzle-loader. But putting nails in the load is likely to cause one or more of them to wedge sideways, and blow the gun up, along with the upper half of the shooter. I think that part's probably myth.

Peter

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Stewie
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:28 PM

I prefer Steve Young's rendition, but there are many excellent ones.

I am interested in Bobert's use of the word 'shits'. Unless language has changed in recent times, if you associated that term with anything here in Oz, it would mean that it was bloody awful or repugnant.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: frogprince
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:47 PM

I've heard various stories, mainly in fiction, of loading a shotgun with rock salt, with the intention of inflicting serious pain on an intruding person or animal non-fataly. But, apart from the real danger of blowing up the gun that midchuck mentioned, including nails would be particularly vicious. There would be no way to say it couldn't wound fatally, and someone could very well die in much worse agony than if the salt wasn't included.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 11 - 09:23 PM

Poster is Bobert.

---

Sorry, Stewie, took so long to get back to ya'...

"The shits" is kinda a Georgia term for far-f'n-out...

B~

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: GUEST,Richie "Buck" Neal
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 09:48 PM

Hey Buddy,

It's been 45 years or longer since we saw each other. Hope you remember the good old days in Mandeville, La. and the National Guard with my brother Gene Neal. I was watching a replay on Austin City Limits of you with Patty and Emmy Lou. Hope all is well with you and as always, you were greart as ever. Would love to hear from you, if you have a chance, and time for an old friend these days.

Richie

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: kendall
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 05:16 AM

This is one of those songs that can be ruined with too much instrumentation. And, too many singers just don't have the voice for it; they "Holler on key" instead of singing it.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 11:58 AM

I'm always glad that someone is recording one of Utah's songs. I feel that he was underrated as a songwriter, because, particularly in his later years,he performed only a few songs in concert, and mostly told jokes and stories. This may have been due to some health issues which prevented him from playing the guitar as well as he would have liked. These are not criticisms, just observations. He was such a unique, lively, thoughtful man that I still find it hard to believe that he's gone. Off the thread, but I don't care.

Subject: RE: Buddy Miller's 'Rock Salt & Nails' is...
From: deepdoc1
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 01:12 PM

My favorite version is the Steve Young (and I think Betsy Kaske?) version on Folked Again album. Very effective instrumentation, not too much hollerin'. Too close for second is Rosalie Sorrel's classy take.