Easter Sunday and the Rolling Stones?

So, what have the Rolling Stones to do with Easter? Well, actually, the link is a bit tenuous – on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, they recorded and brought to everybody’s attention a Mississippi Fred McDowell song, You Gotta Move.

You may be high, you may be low

You may be rich, child, you may be poor

But when the Lord get ready

You gotta move.

Mick, Keef and the boys may or may not have realized, but this is a song about Christian hope – it’s about resurrection. No matter who you are – man, woman, black or white, rich or poor – when the Lord’s good and ready – them bones gotta move! It’s Gary Davis Jr’s “great gettin’ up morning” when he “heard the angels singing.”

Now Jesus – we’re fine with him as great teacher – depending on your preference or politics you can have “the poor you always have with you,” “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” or “my kingdom is not of this world” or, if you’re game for being a bit more challenged, you can focus on the golden rule, “love your enemies”, “blessed are the peace makers.” So long as he’s an de-historicized prophet or philosopher, he’s pretty safe – maybe a bit profound here and there, like Aristotle or some other religious guru and worth knowing about – but once we start putting resurrection into the mix, that starts to get a bit rich for us.

Early Jesus follower Paul realized this pretty much from the get-go. “If the Messiah isn’t raised from the dead,” he wrote in his letter to a group of Jesus followers in Corinth, then “our faith is worthless.” Might as well “eat and drink,” he said, “for tomorrow we die.”

Paul tells us he knew a load of people who’d seen the risen Jesus, apart from himself, and everything stood or fell one this fact. Paul and other people in the first century may not have shared our scientific worldview. But they knew dead when they saw it. Dead men didn’t get up. Dead was dead.

But Paul and his friends had seen Jesus raised from the dead and their Jewish theology led them to the conclusion that this fact meant that Jesus followers – those in-the-Messiah, as Paul puts it – could hope for a similar outcome at the last. Christian faith revolves around resurrection – the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus followers. Nowhere does the New Testament encourage a hope for a disembodied existence after death in a heavenly city in the sky. Christian hope is much more earthy, tangible – it’s about the hope for a new world, a transformation of the here and now and a share in that through resurrection. This sort of hope is the impetus for Jesus followers to live as if that day had already arrived, focusing their lives on the justice, peace and love that Jesus taught about.

This is why Christians celebrate Easter Sunday – God raising Jesus from the dead means everything has changed; something fundamental in the universe has shifted and each of us can be a part of it. No matter who we are – as Fred McDowell said – rich or poor, a women or a policeman, whoever – we can have a share in God’s future. When the Lord get ready – you gotta MOVE!

 

Sidemen: Long Road to Glory.

(Dir: Scott D. Rosenbaum)

Hubert Sumlin

Sidemen, narrated by Marc Maron, is a splendid tribute to three legendary bluesmen – pianist Pinetop Perkins, drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Over an hour and twenty minutes we get brief life histories of the three men, interviews and live performances by them, and tributes from a who’s who of the blues world, including Bonnie Raitt, Greg Allman, Joe Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, to name but a few. It’s a beautifully crafted film, utterly engaging and an overdue appreciation of three musicians who left an indelible mark not only on the blues, but on rock’n roll. Their role was to support, and yet their contribution was foundational for both Muddy Waters’ and Howlin’ Wolf’s bands. Today’s musicians interviewed in the film leave us in no doubt that these three helped redefine modern music as we know it.

The beauty of the film is in the intimate interviews and live performances shot shortly before Perkins, Smith and Sumlin passed away in 2011, though there is a wealth of concert footage of Waters, Wolf, Hendrix and the Rolling Stones over the years too. Both Perkins and Smith died a few months after their Grammy success for the “Joined at the Hip,” album. Perkins was 97, the oldest Grammy winner, and Smith 75. It was indeed a long road to glory.

The film strongly makes the case for Hubert Sumlin’s induction into the Rock’n Roll Hall of Fame. Not only was he an outstanding guitarist – number 43 in Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Guitarist list, but rated by Derek Trucks as much, much better than that – but he was, according to Kenny Wayne Shepherd, “an extraordinary example of a human being.”

Sidemen is an affectionate, but never sentimental, tribute to three top class musicians who were overshadowed by two titans of blues history, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Any music fan ought to enjoy this film; any blues fan will be delighted – indeed for them it is required viewing.

 

 

Time to Come Home: Pigs, Stones and the Blues

In September 1929 in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, a young blues singer called Robert Wilkins recorded a song entitled “That’s No Way to Get Along.” It was a song about no-good, cheatin’ women, as were so many of the blues songs of the time.

About six years later, Robert’s wife became very ill, and, given the lack of access to medical care that was common in black communities in the Deep South, Robert was at his wits’ end. In his desperation he cried out to God and promised that if God would spare his wife, he would turn his life around and serve the Lord.

Remarkably, Robert’s wife did indeed survive, and true to his word, Robert turned his life over to God and in due course was ordained a minister in the Church of God in Christ. He turned his back on the blues, but continued to play his guitar and sing. He changed the lyrics of some of his old blues songs, including “That’s No Way to Get Along,” which became a compelling re-telling of Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15.

Rev. Robert Wilkins was “rediscovered” in the early 1960s and performed a version of “Prodigal Son” at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, clocking in at some 9 minutes long. The song was subsequently taken by the Rolling Stones and performed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on their 1968 album, Beggars’ Banquet, providing Wilkins with some welcome income in his old age.

The story of the prodigal son is one that is very familiar to most people. The idea of “the prodigal returning” is deeply embedded into our culture to people of faith or no faith. Although told in the context of a rural Palestinian setting of 2,000 years ago, the story still resonates today across cultures. We miss some of the nuances, of course – the idea of a son asking his father, in this social context, for his inheritance, is tantamount to telling his father “I wish you were dead,” which Jesus’s hearers would have found utterly shocking and would have served to highlight even further the father’s willingness to welcome his wayward son back. The idea of a respected, village chief watching for his son and then pulling up his robes to run to greet him – an elder like this would never have been seen running – again would have amazed Jesus’s audience.

And also, the story was likely told by Jesus as a parable of what was happening to his people, Israel, as a result of his own coming. For Jesus, the long hoped for day of restoration and the arrival of God’s reign, was beginning through his own life. So the story tells Israel’s story of going away from God to live in a land of pagans (note the element of the son working with pigs in a strange land), but then coming back and being welcomed by God – with the disapproval of the elder son, clearly representing those Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus and rejected his ideas about the arrival of God’s kingdom. Israel had, of course experienced life amongst pagans, when in exile, and then again whilst in their own land under a succession of invaders including the current lot, the Romans. Jesus message is clear – that God is now welcoming all those who will return to God, including the “tax collectors and sinners” who were despised by Israel’s leaders.

But beyond the quite clear application to Jesus’s own historical situation, the story is a powerful one which appeals to most of us – someone who gets themselves into a bad situation; who makes some attempt at making a change, but with low expectations of the result (“I don’t deserve to be called a son; just treat me like a hired hand”); undeserved, but lavish parental love; jealously from those who feel offended that their loyalty has been taken for granted. We can all relate to it.

But the unselfconscious, exuberant love of the father, which refuses to stand on ceremony, and is prepared to be utterly undignified, stands out of course. And reminds us that, no matter how low we go, how far gone are things, there is always the chance of forgiveness, of love, of a clean sheet. Like the prodigal, we just need to come home.

 

The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction: how you can get some

Satisfaction, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1965, was, according to Richards, “the song that launched us into global fame.” It was the Rolling Stones’ first number one in the US and became their 4^th number one in the UK, despite initially being played only on pirate radio stations because its lyrics were considered too sexually suggestive. The song is considered by many as one of the best rock songs ever recorded. It placed 2^nd in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and in 2006 was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

Richards suggests he conceived the song in his sleep and his three-note guitar riff begins and drives the song along. As well as the obvious to sexual connotations of the lyrics, there also seems to be a frustration with the increasing commercialism of the modern world expressed. The radio blasts out “useless information” and the ads on TV tell us “how white my shirts can be” and that you can’t be a man unless you smoke a certain brand of cigarettes. Jagger’s lyrics go on to bemoan the pressures of touring, of “ridin’ round the world.”

Fast forward seven years to the Stone’s sojourn in France to a period of excessive drug abuse and the album Exile on Main Street. The Stones have been a hugely successful rock’n roll band all over the world for some years, so wealthy they are tax-exiles, living outside the UK. The song Rocks Off goes:

And I only get my rocks off while I’m dreaming, (only get them off)
I only get my rocks off while I’m sleeping.
Feel so hypnotized, can’t describe the scene.
Its all mesmerized, all that inside me.
The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Chasing shadows moonlight mystery.
Headed for the overload,
Splattered on the dirty road,

The song sounds jaunty and upbeat, but the lyrics are thoroughly dispiriting. Even the sunshine “bores the daylights out of me.” The singer is thoroughly jaded – neither making love nor getting kicked causes any interest any more. The only escape is into the world of dreams, of unreality. Mick, Keef and the boys still can’t get no satisfaction.

Success, fame, adoring fans, an excess of whatever it is you can have, smoke, or inject just doesn’t seem to do it. An interesting article in the New York Times by Arthur C. Brooks (Love People, Not Pleasure) recently made this very point. He quotes a research project from the University of Rochester which found that some people had “intrinsic” goals, such as deep, enduring relationships, whereas others had “extrinsic” goals, such as achieving reputation or fame. Guess which group turned out to be happier – yep, the “intrinsic” group.

Our society is addicted to fame, to celebrity, but it’s precisely those who want desperately to be noticed, loved, wanted who end up the unhappiest. And let’s not forget about social media, where we all crave the “likes” and the admiration of others for our clever or funny posts or photos of us doing great things. Brooks quotes the results of many psychological studies: “People who rate materialistic goals like wealth as top personal priorities are significantly likelier to be more anxious, more depressed and more frequent drug users, and even to have more physical ailments than those who set their sights on more intrinsic values.”

Brooks comes to the conclusion that, “If it feels good, do it” is nothing but a popular piece of life-ruining advice. Money, fame, sexual hedonism, accumulation of things all have their lure – but the evidence leads to the conclusion that a cycle of grasping and craving can’t give us no satisfaction.

The true wisdom of happiness lies in relationships with others. Walter Trout realises this in his song Blues for the Modern Daze, from the eponymous album. “You get yours, I’ll get mine…Ain’t nothing left to give, It’s dog eat dog, In the Modern Daze.” And in Take A Little Time, from The Blues Came Callin’, he bemoans the “telephone…buzzin’,” the “people at the door,” and the fact that “the days are flyin’ by, goin’ too damn fast.”

The answer? “You gotta take a little time, baby, Take a little time for love.”

The simple truth is we can’t get no satisfaction in things or in fame. We get satisfaction in loving others. And as Arthur Brooks says,

“It requires the courage to repudiate pride and the strength to love others — family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, God and even strangers and enemies. Only deny love to things that actually are objects. The practice that achieves this is charity. Few things are as liberating as giving away to others that which we hold dear.”