THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
Stir together some old British folk tunes and an old Texas gambling song, recordings by early 20th Century luminaries such as Fiddlin’ Jack Carson and blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson, Dylan musings from the back cover of Another Side of Bob Dylan, and you get three killer versions of “Jack O’ Diamonds”, each one unique and unforgettable. The first is primo mod sung by a cult actor who later snared a role in The Dirty Dozen, guitar courtesy of Jimmy Page. The second is garage heaven from the Seattle underground. The third is psych folk from British folksters Fairport Convention’s first LP.
Tony Attwood begins the story:
Alan Lomax . . . says in “Our singing country” (1941) that it was a Texas gambling song that was popularized by Blind Lemon Jefferson (which is good enough for me). It was apparently sung by railroad men who had lost money playing conquian (a game known in England as rummy) and the song comes from a family of similar songs originating in Britain.
https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/8280
Dave Marsh continues:
Buried among the military bands and trad jazz in my Dad’s record collection were one or two gems, notably a number of Lonnie Donegan 78s, perhaps the best of which was his version of this old gambling folk song. It reached No 14 in the UK singles chart in 1957 and I was thrilled by Donegan’s energetic performance, delivered at breakneck speed. “Jack of Diamonds” has a long history. The lyrics may date from the American civil war and the tune from even earlier . . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/13/daily-flash-jack-diamonds
1,197) Ben Carruthers and the Deep — “Jack O’ Diamonds”
“The song has a slow, doomy intro then quickens to mid to uptempo, [Jimmy] Page’s guitar, piano, organ and drums evoking a menacing setting, Ian Whiteman’s Wurlitzer delivering a fine organ break, Carruthers supplying an expressive vocal.” (Bayard, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/ben-carruthers-and-the-deep/jack-odiamonds-right-behind-you) Richard Williams enthuses:
One of my favourite records of the summer of 1965 was “Jack o’ Diamonds” by Ben Carruthers and the Deep, produced by Shel Talmy and released that June on Parlophone. The songwriting credit on the label read “Dylan-Carruthers”. . . . It’s a terrific piece of work, perfectly pitched between the exhilarating modernist Anglo-R&B sound of the early Animals, Kinks and Who and Dylan’s intense, inventive folk-rock. Great guitars — heavily reverbed arpeggios, slashing rhythm — with watery organ fills and solo, no nonsense from the bass and drums, and an urgent post-Dylan vocal. [B]eautifully constructed . . . . and a wonderful final chord.
https://thebluemoment.com/2014/07/31/ben-carruthers-and-the-deep/
Williams gives the story of Carruthers’ and his only 45:
Carruthers, an American actor who had appeared six years earlier in John Cassavetes’ great Shadows, was in London that summer to appear in a BBC-TV Wednesday Play, Troy Kennedy Martin’s A Man Without Papers, playing the lead opposite Geraldine McEwan. He visited Dylan at the Savoy hotel (a sojourn immortalised, of course, in D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back), and when he asked him for a lyric he was rewarded with a piece of paper on which Dylan scrawled a version of the poem that had appeared the previous year on the sleeve of Another Side of Bob Dylan . . . . No wonder the backing track is so sharp: the band, created by Talmy for the session at IBC Studios in Portland Place, included two of the sharpest 21-year-old session musicians in London, Jimmy Page on guitar and Nicky Hopkins on piano, along with a bunch of students from the Architectural Association: Benny Kern on guitar, Ian Whiteman on Lowrey organ, Pete Hodgkinson on drums and a bass player remember only as John. Whiteman later joined the Action, who became Mighty Baby. According to him (on the 45cat website here), it was Kern as much as Carruthers who put the music to Dylan’s lyrics. . . . Carruthers (which is how he was credited on some of his early films) was born in Illinois [and] was already 29 when he made “Jack o’ Diamonds”. He didn’t make any more records, but there were several further appearances on TV and in movies, including The Dirty Dozen in 1967.
https://thebluemoment.com/2014/07/31/ben-carruthers-and-the-deep/
Apparently, “[e]ven though Dylan had provided the lyrics to his friend Carruthers, the words were used without proper permission and the Carruthers record was quickly withdrawn.” (Bayard, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/ben-carruthers-and-the-deep/jack-odiamonds-right-behind-you)
Tony Attwood adds:
The composition Jack O’ Diamonds has been reported as being composed by Bob Dylan and Ben Carruthers, and it has a very interesting origin and evolution. Whether this is a “real” Bob Dylan composition, I’ll leave you to decide . . . . According to Second Hand Songs “Carruthers took it upon himself to create a song based upon some poetry/prose that Dylan had penned for the sleevenotes of his Another Side Of Bob Dylan album. Carruthers (as well as being an actor) had worked as a secretary for Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and it’s believed this connection made the whole thing possible.” . . So, bits of an old blues, a fraction of Dylan’s sleeve notes, and a new melody. I am not sure if this really warrants Bob being credited with the lyrics.
https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/8280
1,198) The Daily Flash — “Jack of Diamonds”
This ’66 B-side was from the first of the Flash’s two singles. Mike Stax tells us: “Opening with a drawn-out-feedback-and-drum build-up, and then launching into a thundering bass-driven arrangement, [it] is a remarkably advanced piece of work. The raw, wailing harmonica and abrasive guitar break recall something of the Yardbirds and anticipate the psychedelic movement centered around San Francisco.” (liner notes to the CD comp Nuggets (Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968))
David Marsh writes of this song of”shambolic brilliance” that:
The opening wall of noise during which the drummer seems to be warming up; the bass playing the same insistent riff throughout; the urgent harmonica and jagged guitar; the production that suggests it really was recorded in someone’s garage – all contribute to a great record. It finishes as it begins and you have heard the definitive garage punk single.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/13/daily-flash-jack-diamonds
The Listening Post Blog enthuses:
Their sound, which fused elements of folk, rock and jazz, proved to be a contrasting force in a time where garage rock was such a dominant force in the San Francisco/Californian scene – this gave them an edge. So, with this in mind, I am about to share a track that contradicts all that I have just written!! The Daily Flash wrote a garage rock song!!!…and it’s pretty cool!!! . . . Rocking with blistering feedback and swirling with this warm hub of melodic chaos, it’s this rawness that makes this offering so edgy and sharp!! I love how the deep bluesy harmonica embellishments entwines with the frenzied guitar, as if in a dual, fighting for prominence…both components as mighty as one another! It’s a little smasher!
https://thelisteningpostblog.wordpress.com/2022/01/08/song-of-the-day-the-daily-flash-jack-of-diamonds/
David Marsh notes that the Daily Flash was “a Seattle quartet who moved to California and managed to rub shoulders with various big names (they were signed by the manager of Buffalo Springfield) without ever quite finding success themselves . . . .” (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/13/daily-flash-jack-diamonds) Mike Stax adds that “Steve Lalor and Don MacAllister’s roots were in folk music, but by the middle of 1964 they were gravitating toward a more electric approach and enlisted jazz-trained drummer Jon Keliehor and guitarist Doug Hastings to form The Daily Flash. With an electic set that drew on folk, jazz, and rock elements, the group had become a major force in the growing Seattle underground scene by 1965.” (liner notes to the CD comp Nuggets (Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968))
Of the Flash, Richie Unterberger writes that:
More than any other Seattle group of the ’60s, the Daily Flash assimilated the folk-rock and psychedelic sounds of the day into a sound that was both forward-looking and commercial. Specializing in electric rearrangements of contemporary folk songs that emphasized their harmonies and 12-string guitar, the Flash were also capable of psychedelic rock, as on “Jack of Diamonds,” which featured blistering feedback guitar. They cut a couple of regional singles and appeared with many of the leading psychedelic groups of the day in California, but never managed to launch their own career or even record an album. Guitarist Doug Hastings played briefly with Buffalo Springfield and was a member of Rhinoceros. . . .
As interpreters, The Flash showed a great deal of skill, adapting compositions . . . to full-blown folk-rock arrangements with a touch of baroque pop. . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/album/i-flash-daily-mw0000523014, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-daily-flash-mn0000138414
1,199) Fairport Convention — “Jack O’ Diamonds”
Michael Little sort of loves the song, from FC’s first LP (’68):
Fairport Convention plays Bob Dylan and Ben Carruthers’ . . . “Jack O’Diamonds” fast and loose like they’re the Byrds, and I really dig it despite its recorder solo by Dyble (which should have been a guitar solo by [Richard] Thompson), and its lack of Thompson guitar mayhem in general. It opens with a slow guitar riff, then takes off, with [Ian] Matthews [see #173, 1,102] singing . . . . Then there’s some ensemble singing I don’t much care for, although I love Dyble’s wail at the end. All in all it’s a pretty cool song, perfect for an acid trip or poker night, and that’s what I call one multi-tasking tune.
https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2022/10/graded-curve-fairport-convention-fairport-convention-2/
As to FC, Richie Unterberger tells us:
The best British folk-rock band of the late ’60s, Fairport Convention did more than any other act to develop a truly British variation on the folk-rock prototype by drawing upon traditional material and styles indigenous to the British Isles. While the revved-up renditions of traditional British folk tunes drew the most critical attention, the group members were also (at least at the outset) talented songwriters as well as interpreters. They were comfortable with conventional harmony-based folk-rock as well as tunes that drew upon more explicitly traditional sources, and boasted some of the best singers and instrumentalists of the day. . . . When Fairport formed around 1967, their goal was not to revive British folk numbers, but to play harmony- and guitar-based folk-rock in a style strongly influenced by Californian groups of the day (especially the Byrds). The lineup that recorded their self-titled debut album in 1968 featured Richard Thompson, Ian Matthews, and Siimon Nicol on guitars . . . . Most of the members sang, though Matthews and [Judy] Dyble were the strongest vocalists in this early incarnation; all of their early work, in fact, was characterized by blends of male and female vocals, influenced by such American acts as the Mamas & the Papas and Ian & Sylvia. While their first album was derivative, it had some fine material, and the band was already showing a knack for eclecticism . . . . Fairport Convention didn’t reach their peak until Dyble was replaced after the first album in 1968 by Sandy Denny, who had previously recorded both as a solo act and with the Strawbs. [Her] penetrating, resonant style qualified her as the best British folk-rock singer of all time, and provided Fairport with the best vocalist they would ever have. . . .
By far the most rock-oriented of Fairport Convention’s early albums . . . . [their debut LP was u]njustly overlooked by listeners who consider the band’s pre-Denny output insignificant[. But] this is a fine folk-rock effort that takes far more inspiration from West Coast ’60s sounds than traditional British folk. Fairport’s chief strengths at this early juncture were the group’s interpretations, particularly in the harmony vocals, of obscure tunes by American songwriters . . . . Their own songs weren’t quite up to that high standard, but were better than many have given them credit for . . . . It’s true that Fairport would devise a more original style after Denny joined, but the bandmembers’ first-class abilities as more American pop-folk-rock-styled musicians on this album shouldn’t be undersold.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/fairport-convention-mw0000207270,
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fairport-convention-mn0000162233#biography, https://www.allmusic.com/album/fairport-convention-mw0000207270
Here is Fiddlin’ Jack Carson:
Here is Blind Lemon Jefferson:
Here is Lonnie Donnegan:
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Apparently I don’t know “Jack”! An education on the song I obviously knew a lot less than I thought!
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