Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

I think the Any Major Morning series is turning out to be my favourite — the three previous mixes (Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and last year’s Vol. 3) are on frequent rotation at Dude Towers. I’ve even created a playlist of favourites from the three compilations. The present volume will add to that playlist.

Most songs here welcome the morning, though a few meet the start of the new day with a cloud. Kris Kristofferson has a beer for breakfast and one more for dessert; Charlie Rich and Faron Young wake up with self-inflicted heartbreak; The Feminine Complex find their lover gone at six in the morning; and for Jackson Browne rising from bed represents another round of drudgery in the pursuit of money.

But none of them open their eyes to as bleak a scenario as The Byrds: in a war zone. “Take my time this morning, no hurry to learn to kill and take the will from unknown faces…”

Some tracks here are well-known, or by well-known people. Perhaps the most obscure here is The Feminine Complex, an all-women garage rock trio from Nashville who released four singles and one album in 1968-69. The folkie sound of the featured track — originally the b-side of their debut single — is very lovely but not really representative of the band’s sound, which was harder, even using feedback and guitar solos.

Archie Roach was an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. We sadly lost him in 2022. Jesse Colin Young was the lead singer of the 1960s folk-rock band The Youngbloods; he died last year. His featured song speaks of domestic bliss with the woman he loves (an antidote to the dejection of Kris, Charlie and Faron). The setting is a house from which “I walk out on the ridgetop”. That house burnt down in a 1995 wildfire.

At last, one-night-stand anthem Angel Of The Morning gets a run-out. Of all the great versions, I opted for the one by Nina Simone, by as sliver ahead of the one by P.P. Arnold. All this was done before the song’s writer, Chip Taylor died. A story told in the Comments section by Barrie Minney makes me regret that I didn’t go for Arnold. He recalls seeing Chip Taylor in concert 20 years ago. “The highlight of the evening was when he played Angel Of The Morning. Unbeknown to us PP Arnold was pretending to serve drinks behind the bar, when she suddenly joined in. Hairs on the back of your neck thing.”

My shortlist of morning songs keeps growing, so I’m quite confident that there will be a fifth volume. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy this fourth mix, alongside the three that preceded it.As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-boiledegged covers. PW in comments.

1. The Spiral Starecase – Good Morning New Day (1969)
2. Neil Young – Till The Morning Comes (1970)
3. Julie Felix – Windy Morning (1972)
4. Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down (1970)
5. Charlie Rich – The Most Beautiful Girl (1973)
6. Faron Young – It’s Four In The Morning (1971)
7. Jesse Colin Young – Morning Sun (1973)
8. Jackson Browne – The Pretender (1976)
9. The Smithereens – Groovy Tuesday (1986)
10. Archie Roach – Love In The Morning (1993)
11. Doja Cat – Morning Light (2018)
12. Mary J. Blige – Good Morning Gorgeous (2022)
13. Will Downing – That Good Morning Love (1988)
14. Bettye Crutcher – Sunday Morning’s Gonna Find Us In Love (1974)
15. Nina Simone – Angel Of The Morning (1971)
16. Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood – Some Velvet Morning (1967)
17. Claudine Longet – Good Day Sunshine (1967)
18. The Feminine Complex – Six O’Clock In The Morning (1968)
19. The Left Banke – In The Morning Light (1969)
20. Strawberry Alarm Clock – Good Morning Starshine (1969)
21. Vanity Fare – Early In The Morning (1969)
22. Grateful Dead – ’Till The Morning Comes (1970)
23. Nick Drake – From The Morning (1971)
24. The Byrds – Draft Morning (1968)

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Over 11 years ago I posted the first Any Major Morning mix, and ten years ago Any Major Morning Vol. 2. In all that time, both collections have remained firm favourites, reliable old friends to which I return when I don’t quite know what to play.

I reposted both in 2023, with a view of that preparing the way for a third volume. Things kept getting in the way, but here it finally is. And I think it’s as good as the first two.

Five or six of the present tracks didn’t exist yet when the first two volumes came out. One of them is Willie Nelson’s 2017 song Still Not Dead. It begins: “I woke up still not dead again today. The Internet said I had passed away. If I died I wasn’t dead to stay… and I woke up still not dead again today.” May there be many such mornings for Willie yet.

Sadly gone already is the wonderful Justin Townes Earle. The featured track is from his final album, 2019’s The Saint Of Lost Causes. It serves to remind us what a fine talent we lost on that August 20, 2020. A week short of exactly a year later, Nanci Griffith died at the more reasonable (but still too young) age of 68. It is by pure coincidence that the featured Nanci Griffith track follows that by Justin.

The penultimate track is by Kurt Vile, whose name sounds like a made-up punk name, to go with Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. It is actually his real name, which I imagine can’t always have been easy. According to Wikipedia, he cites Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young as influences. Other than Young, all have been the subjects of Any Major Songbooks (the names link to those collections).

One Songbook alumni features here twice: Carole King. She first appears with her lovely Morning Sun, from 1978’s Welcome Home album. She returns a few tracks later as the writer of Laura Yager’s Early Morning Hush, released in 1972 (and covered a year later by BJ Thomas). Singer-songwriter Yager is rather forgotten now, despite having released three albums and five singles between 1971-74.

King appears as a backing vocalist on four tracks on James Taylor’s One Man Dog album of 1972, but not on his version of the traditional song One Morning In May. The backing vocals on that recording are by Linda Ronstadt.I have a shortlist of more great morning songs, so a Volume 4 is inevitable. And it will not take ten years to run it!

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-cornflaked covers. PW in comments.

1. John Wesley Harding – Good Morning (I Just Woke Up) (1997)
2. Leo Kottke – Jack Gets Up (1989)
3. Carole King – Morning Sun (1978)
4. Joni Mitchell – Morning Morgantown (1970)
5. James Taylor – One Morning In May (1972)
6. Laura Yager – Early Morning Hush (1972)
7. Carolyn Franklin – Don’t Wake Me Up In The Morning, Michael (1970)
8. Diana Ross – Touch Me In The Morning (1973)
9. Roberta Flack – ‘Till The Morning Comes (1982)
10. Luther Vandross & Patti Austin – I’m Gonna Miss You In The Morning (1978)
11. The Winans & Anita Baker – Ain’t No Need To Worry (1986)
12. PJ Morton feat. Susan Carol – Good Morning (2023)
13. Hush Kids – Morning Is Made (2019)
14. Ron Sexsmith – The Morning Light (2013)
15. Justin Townes Earle – Mornings In Memphis (2019)
16. Nanci Griffith – Just Another Morning Here (2012)
17. Willie Nelson – Still Not Dead (2017)
18. Tift Merritt – Morning Is My Destination (2008)
19. Bruce Springsteen – Empty Sky (2002)
20. Bright Eyes – I Woke Up With This Song In My Head This Morning (2004)
21. Kurt Vile – Pretty Pimpin’ (2015)
22. The Pogues – Misty Morning, Albert Bridge (1989)

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Last week I reposted ago I recycled from August 2013 one of the Any Major CD-R mixes I have listened to more than most other collection of music, Any Major Morning Vol. 1. Likewise, I have have played the present, second morning mix many, many times. It’s that good, and it is high time I re-share it with you, having originally run in August 2014.

The previous mix simply featured songs with the word “morning” in the title, provided the lyrics were set in the morning. The titles in this lot don’t all include the word “morning”, but they abide broadly by the latter rule. So I disqualify songs like Touch Me In The Morning or Angel Of The Morning wherein the singer is anticipating behaviours that still lie ahead. I’ve not been steadfast with that rule; the Crash Test Dummies survived it, as did Hall & Oates.

Obviously I have tried to avoid songs that use the idea of “morning” as a metaphor, so no It’s Morning Britain by Aztec Camera. And, Faron Young: 4 am is hardly “morning”, chum.

I’m surprised by how few songs there are about that great morning activity: breakfasts. The songs included here are not exactly about croissants and flapjacks (unless those can be applied as euphemisms), though the cute and amusing K’s Choice song sort of is.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-yawned covers. PW in comments.

1. The Beatles – Good Morning Good Morning (1967)
2. The Pretty Things – She Says Good Morning (1968)
3. Big Star – Watch The Sunrise (1972)
4. Richie Havens – Morning, Morning (1968)
5. Badfinger – Sweet Tuesday Morning (1971)
6. Daryl Hall & John Oates – When The Morning Comes (1973)
7. Neil Diamond – Deep In The Morning (1969)
8. Jimmy James & The Vagabonds – Good Day Sunshine (1968)
9. Chuck Jackson – I Wake Up Crying (1961)
10. The Rascals – A Beautiful Morning (1968)
11. The Monkees – Sometime In The Morning (1967)
12. Dusty Springfield – Breakfast in Bed (1969)
13. Gil Scott-Heron – I Think I’ll Call It Morning (1971)
14. The Bar Kays – Memphis At Sunrise (1972)
15. Bill Withers – Lovely Day (1977)
16. The Partridge Family – I Woke Up In Love This Morning (1971)
17. Glen Campbell – Sunflower (1977)
18. George Strait – Amarillo By Morning (1982)
19. Cowboy Junkies – Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning (1990)
20. Crash Test Dummies – Get You In The Morning (1999)
21. The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo! (1995)
22. Eels – Saturday Morning (2003)
23. Richard Hawley – As The Dawn Breaks (2009)
24. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Someday Some Morning Sometime (2000)
25. K’s Choice – Breakfast (1993)
26. Norah Jones – Sunrise (2004)

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[This is a repost from August 2013. This mix and its follow-up are among my all-time Any Major CD-R mixes, so after almost a decade, it’s good to recycle them.]

Here’s a mix I have played more often than perhaps any I have ever done on this site. I dreamed it up, almost literally, when I had to drop my son at the airport for a red-eye flight. Trying to cheer myself up, I sang the Good Morning song from Singin’ In The Rain, Good Day Sunshine by The Beatles, and It’s Four In The Morning by Faron Young. Funny enough, none of these made it into this eclectic mix.

It kicks off with the full version of the song you’ll know as the theme to The Sopranos, by London band Alabama 3. I hope you’ll have better mornings than the subjects of the song. It’s based on the 1989 killing of English wife-beater Malcolm Thornton by his wife Sarah, who stabbed him 20 times. A trial in 1990 found her guilty of murder; a retrial in 1996 reduced the verdict to manslaughter and Sarah was set free for time served.

The version featured here of Kevin Ayer‘s infectious Religious Experience (Singing A Song In The Morning), the psychedelic rocker”s first single in 1970, is the longer one which remained unreleased until 2003. It has Pink Floyd legend Syd Barrett on guitar, while The Ladybirds, who are best known from The Benny Hill Show, perform the backing vocals.

Perhaps the most obscure track here is Joyce Williams‘ The First Thing I Do In The Morning. This gospel-funk number burns it up, with its hot flutes, sizzling wah-wah guitar and incendiary bass. The only other record Williams seems to have recorded was a single titled Dance The Wrangler Shake (take that, Harlem) six years earlier, in 1966 — for the jeans company.

A few songs here are covers of well-known songs. Harry Nilsson covers Louis Jordan’s 1947 hit Early In The Morning, Paul Weller does Paul Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain.

And listen to Bernard Purdie’s great drums on the Tim Rose track.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-brewed covers. Volume 2 will follow next week.

1. Alabama 3 – Woke Up This Morning (1997)
2. Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (1967)
3. Harry Nilsson – Early In The Morning (1971)
4. Tim Rose – Morning Dew (1967)
5. Kevin Ayers – Religious Experience (Singing A Song In The Morning) (1970)
6. The Jesus and Mary Chain – Deep One Perfect Morning (1987)
7. The Lilac Time – This Morning (2001)
8. The Pogues – Tuesday Morning (1993)
9. Paul Weller – Early Morning Rain (2004)
10. Brandi Carlile – Late Morning Lullaby (2007)
11. Lyle Lovett – Just The Morning (1994)
12. Rusty Wier – Texas Morning (1974)
13. Dolly Parton – Early Morning Breeze (1971)
14. Isaac Hayes – Early Sunday Morning (1971)
15. Joyce Williams – The First Thing I Do In The Morning (1972)
16. David Ruffin – Morning Sun Looks Blue (1979)
17. Al Jarreau – Mornin’ (1983)
18. Major Harris – Each Morning I Wake Up (1974)
19. The Temptations – Love Woke Me Up This Morning (1972)
20. Tim Buckley – Morning Glory (1967)
21. Townes Van Zandt – I’ll Be Here In The Morning (1968)
22. Bobbie Gentry – Mornin’ Glory (1968)
23. Joan Baez & Bill Wood – So Soon In The Morning (1959)

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