Sunday Meditation: The Solemnity of Peter and Paul

Today is the third feast Sunday following Pentecost, and today is one that is fixed to the 29^th of June.  When it doesn’t fall on a Sunday, it used to be a Holy Day of Obligation, and it still is in some parts of the world.  Where it is not, such as the United States, it is transferred to the following Sunday.

 

There are several Gospel readings for this feast, depending on whether the Mass is a vigil, day, or night.  I will choose the day Mass for Year C:

 

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi

he asked his disciples,

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,

still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter said in reply,

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my Church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

   ~Mt 16:13-19

 

That is the often quoted passage of Jesus handing the keys of heaven and hell, binding and loosing to St. Peter.

Fr. Geoffrey Plant once again provides a thorough understanding of the Solemnity’s significance. 

 

Amazing this feast day goes back to the third century!  That when the Church was still being persecuted.  I really like that quote from St. Augustine: “Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one, and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one.  Peter went first and Paul followed.  And so we celebrate this day made holy by the apostles’ blood.  Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”

Also fascinating is that in the New Testament, Peter is mentioned by three names: Peter (154 times), Simon (75 times), and Cephas (7 times). 

Jeff Cavins provides us a pastoral preaching (he is not a priest to call it a homily) on this Solemnity. 

 

Of particular note is the pattern Cavins points out between the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, between Jesus and the apostles after the Resurrection, and then between the first half of Acts with Peter and the second half with Paul.  And so there are parallels between Jesus, Peter, and Paul. 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “But who do you say that I am?”

 

 

For the hymn, I’m going to bet you never heard this before.  “St. Paul’s Blues” by John Michael Talbot. 

 

 

Has anyone heard that before?  I did not think John Michael Talbot ever took on the blues form.  I’m not sure what to think. 

 

Music Tuesday: Dion’s Blues With Friends

A number of Catholic outlets have noted Dion DiMucci’s new music album, Blues with Friends.  You may know Dion from the 1950s!  He was the lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts, players of Doo-Wop style of rock-n-roll.  Well, if you’ve kept up with his music career, it didn’t end in the 50’s with “Runaround Sue.” He’s made other music as you can read in his Wikipedia entry, some of it popular.  What you may not have known is that throughout his 57 year career he has been a believing Catholic and at some point a devout Catholic.  He has actually written songs with the well-known Catholic historian, Mike Aquilina.   

Dion’s new album has gotten a bit of air play because each song features a different virtuoso, usually well known.  Given that I love the blues, given that I love Dion, given that I love many of the virtuosos featured, I had to get the album.  Before I feature some of the songs let me provide a few excerpts of articles from Catholic outlets.

First about the record, let’s turn to the National Catholic Register’s article, “The Wanderer Sings the Blues: Rock ‘n’ roll legend Dion chats about music andfaith.”

Dion tells us about the making of the record.

 

“You don’t know how much fun it was to make this album,” Dion told the Register. “This album was like riding a cloud — no stress involved at all. It was amazing because sometimes making an album can be excruciating. … [This time] the songs came. I wasn’t under pressure. I was writing them as they came to me. I decided to record them. I went into the studio and knocked these tracks out in three days. I just sat down with the guitar and sang maybe six songs one day, six the next, two the next. A lot of them are just one take.

 

“One take — that way the songs are full of light, full of expression,” he continued. “You might not get it perfect, but its full of expression. I’m full of expression. I’m not a draughtsman. I express my art.”

Next in an article titled “Blues with friends, life with God: A conversation with Dion and Mike Aquilina,” from the Catholic World Report we get a one paragraph summary of the work:

 

Dion’s latest album, Blues With Friends, has spent months on the Billboard “Blues Album” charts, much of that time in the #1 slot. Featuring guest appearances by such rock legends as Jeff Beck, Paul Simon, Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top), Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and more, the album is another triumph from the man whose career began with Dion and the Belmonts, and has lasted another 60 years beyond – and counting.

 

Perhaps the most obvious question a Catholic journalist would ask is the first he asks:

 

Catholic World Report: Let’s talk about your Catholic faith, and how that influences your music.

 

Dion DiMucci: Well, my Catholic faith influences everything. That’s at the center of my being, of my mind. If you would unzip my mind and look inside my brain, you’d find a very orderly place, and that’s because of having a personal relationship with God. I came into a 12-step spiritual program 52 years ago and it was gleaned from St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Disciplines. It’s designed to lead you into union with God. And that’s a very peaceful place! A place of wisdom, a place of power, of serenity; it’s home. I’m home, and I’m not living in a chaotic world, because I’m living in God’s presence – or trying to, a day at a time.

 

That influences everything. It frees you up to write about beauty, and truth, and goodness, and relationships. I think it helps you be creative. I’ve had a lot of people say to me, “At your age, you sound like a young guy! Your voice is incredibly vital.” That’s God. Without God I’d probably be drinking and drugging, sounding husky – I probably wouldn’t even be alive. If he wasn’t the center, I think I’d be in trouble in some way. I think I’d be living in a chaotic state. I’d probably be grasping for position and power and money and pleasure and honor, fighting everybody, trying to be better, trying to win, all of that. Instead of just being content in all things.

 And of course then the collaboration with his partner comes tomind.

 

CWR: Can you briefly recount how you and Mike Aquilina got to know each other, and how you came to write songs together?

 

Dion: We found ourselves in Rome together, in 2000. We were on the bus, and we stopped and there was a statue of St. Jerome. I remembered a quote that I read in the back of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in the Bronx that said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” and that’s St. Jerome. So I said that to Mike, and he says to me “The Thunderer!” I said “’The Thunderer’? What’s that?” And he said, “Well, St. Jerome – he gave ‘ignorance of Scripture’ new meaning. He was from what we now call Croatia, the brightest of the bright, so he was sent to Rome. The pope saw how bright he was and had him translate the Bible from Greek to Latin – the Vulgate. And he was an intolerant guy – he didn’t like Italian women and Greek women, the way they combed their hair, the way they did their eye makeup. People got on his nerves.” I said, “People got on his nerves? How could he be a saint?” He said, “Well, it takes all kinds to make it to heaven. He had great qualities. He moved to Israel; he made friends with a rabbi, and he learned how to speak Hebrew, and he translated the Bible again, from Hebrew to Latin! So he gives ‘ignorance of Scripture’ new meaning.” I said, “I’ve got to write a song about this guy!” And we ended up writing a song called “The Thunderer” about St. Jerome. That was the beginning, that’s how we met.

 And about the actual making of the record, Dion

 

CWR: Coming to your new album: in the liner notes, you talk about how the album’s genesis was in an interaction you had with Joe Bonamassa. How did the album come to fruition? How did you come to choose the “friends” on the album – Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Jeff Beck, etc.?

 

Dion: Well, you’re right, Joe Bonamassa was the catalyst for the album. Mike and I had written all these songs. To be honest with you, Mike kept calling me saying “Hey, got any plans to record those songs? They’re real good, and keep running around my head!” I think this is the best batch of songs we ever put together. They’re memorable, they’re great stories, they’re worthy to be told.

 

I went in and cut all of the songs in three days. Bonamassa heard them at my house and said he wanted to play on “Blues Comin’ On”. And that was it. That really sparked something in me. It sparked the idea that I could cast characters, like each of these songs is a mini movie and I could cast a character to infuse their personality onto my song. It worked so well with Bonamassa, maybe it will work well with Billy Gibbons – and it did! So I sent one to Brian Setzer – and it did! So I decided to send one to Jeff Beck – and it worked again! When he said yes, that was the gold standard, because he has magic in his hands.

 

After that it was just like dominos, like riding a wave. It was crazy fun, because I never gave anybody an idea of what to play – I just gave them the song, a finished track, and they would just add their own thing to it. When these artists do something, it really puts a smile on your face.

 

There’s a lot more good stuff in both those articles, and well worth reading.  But now let me turn to the music.  Here is the entire playlist with the featured artist of each song.

Playlist:

Blues Comin’ On                    Featured Artist:  Joe Bonamassa

Kickin’ Child                          Featured artist: Joe Menza

Uptown Number 7                  Featured artist: Brian Setzer  

Can’t Start Over Again           Featured artist: Jeff Beck      

My Baby Loves To Boogie     Featured artist: John Hammond        

I Got Nothin’                          Featured artists: Van Morrison, Joe Louis Walker

Stumbling Blues                      Featured artists: Jimmy Vivino, Jerry Vivino

Bam Bang Boom                    Featured artist: Billy Gibbons

I Got The Cure                        Featured artist: Sonny Landreth

Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America)        Featured artist: Paul Simon    

What If I Told You                Featured artist: Samantha Fish

Told You Once In August      Featured artists: John Hammond, Rory Block

Way Down (I Won’t Cry No More)   Featured artist: Stevie Van Zandt

Hymn To Him                         Featured Artists: Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen

 

Whoa, those are some heavyweights.  Dion should record with some of his friends more often.

So let’s start with the song that inspired the album, “Blues Comin’ On.”

Joe Bonamassa is a blues guitarists, a really good one.  Dion’s vocals really intertwine nicely with Bonamassa’s guitar licks.

You will just love the rhythmic beauty of “Kickin’ Child” with Joe Menza, who I am not familiar with, on guitar. 

This one has a religious message with “Uptown Number 7,” featuring Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats.

 

I can’t embed all songs, and I’m having a hard time cutting back.  “I Got The Cure” with Sonny Landreth on slide guitar is superb blues. 

Perhaps the highlight of the album has to be Dion’s tribute to his departed friend, Sam Cooke with “Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America)” featuring Paul Simon on backup vocals.  Here’s a clip where Dion explains the song at the end. 

I just love that melody.  And the lyrics are beautiful.  I’ll skip quoting the chorus, but here are the verses from the song.

 

We traveled this land back in nineteen sixty-two

We played the places that were home to me and you

We drove to Memphis, rocked a set

We walked the streets at night and smoked a cigarette

 

Down the block I saw the people stop and stare

You did your best to make a Yankee boy aware

I never thought about the color of your skin

I never worried 'bout the hotel I was in

 

You were the man who earned the glory and the fame

But cowards felt that they could call you any name

You were the star, standing in the light

That won you nothing on a city street at night

 

You stayed more steady than a backbeat on a drum

You told me you believed a change was gonna come

You sang for freedom but lived life free

I saw it in your smile and in your dignity

 

You were a star when you were standing on a stage

I look back on it, I feel a burning rage

You sang "You Send Me", I sang "I Wonder Why"

I still wonder, you were way too young to die

 

That’s one of the best tributes to another singer I have ever heard. 

I do have to highlight Samatha Fish’s lead guitar on “What If I Told You.” 

Wow, she can play. Great blues song too. 

 

Around and round like an old top

You spin my mind and then it won't stop

Down and down you let a name drop

Say you love me then you flip flop

 

Finally I have to include with the most religious song on the album, “Hymn to Him,” featuring the husband and wife team of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa.

He's the light of salvation

He's the head that's never bowed

He's the first step of wisdom

He's the sun through the clouds

 

That’s very moving and a great devotional.  Another interesting note.  The linear notes of the CD were written by a Robert Zimmerman.  Hey, that’s Bob Dylan!

“Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs, these blues songs. He’s got some friends here to help him out, some true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share these Blues songs with him.” - Excerpt from Bob Dylan’s liner notes for Blues With Friends

This album is great. 

Music Tuesday: Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones

I guess readers here remember I’m a Rolling Stones fan when it comes to rock music.  I decided to play the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls album on my ipod, a truly great album, but one of the album songs is “Beast of Burden.”

Wikipedia has an interesting background to the song.

Jagger says, "Lyrically, this wasn't particularly heartfelt in a personal way. It's a soul begging song, an attitude song. It was one of those where you get one melodic lick, break it down and work it up; there are two parts here which are basically the same." The song can be seen as allegorical, with Richards saying in 2003, "When I returned to the fold after closing down the laboratory [referring to his drug problems throughout the 1970s], I came back into the studio with Mick... to say, 'Thanks, man, for shouldering the burden' - that's why I wrote "Beast of Burden" for him, I realise in retrospect."

Man, if this isn’t perfection when it comes to rock and roll, I don’t know what is.  The bluesy melody, the wonderful interweaving guitars, the lyrics of song of male insecurity, and Mick Jagger’s lamentation filled vocals.  Here’s what Wikipedia says about the composition.

"Beast of Burden" was recorded from October–December 1977. Although basic lyrics were written before the Stones entered the studio, many of the lyrics on the recording were improvised by Jagger to fit with the smooth running guitars of Richards and Ronnie Wood. Characteristically, Richards and Wood trade off rolling, fluid licks. Neither is really playing lead or rhythm guitar; they both slip in and out, one playing high while the other is low. The song is another famed Some Girls song that features each band member playing his respective instrument without any outside performers; both Richards and Wood play acoustic and electric guitars, with Wood performing the solo.

You just cannot beat this.

Here are the lyrics, with credit to Keno’s Rolling Stones Web Site. 

BEAST OF BURDEN

(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

I'll never be your beast of burden

My back is broad but it's a hurting

All I want is for you to make love to me

I'll never be your beast of burden

I've walked for miles my feet are hurting

All I want is for you to make love to me

Am I hard enough

Am I rough enough

Am I rich enough

I'm not too blind to see

I'll never be your beast of burden

So let's go home and draw the curtains

Music on the radio

Come on baby make sweet love to me

Am I hard enough

Am I rough enough

Am I rich enough

I'm not too blind to see

Oh little sister

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl

You're a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl

Pretty, pretty

Such a pretty, pretty, pretty girl

Come on baby please, please, please

I'll tell ya

You can put me out

On the street

Put me out

With no shoes on my feet

But, put me out, put me out

Put me out of misery

Yeah, all your sickness

I can suck it up

Throw it all at me

I can shrug it off

There's one thing baby

That I don't understand

You keep on telling me

I ain't your kind of man

Ain't I rough enough, ooh baby

Ain't I tough enough

Ain't I rich enough, in love enough

Ooh! Ooh! Please

I'll never be your beast of burden

I'll never be your beast of burden

Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be

I don't need no beast of burden

I need no fussing

I need no nursing

Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be

Notable Quote: The Psalms as the Blues

Certainly there are great quotes out of the Psalms, but as I’m reading through them, I was wondering if there were any great quotes about the Psalms.  I found this one

 What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.

-Bono

That’s Bono from U2!  And he’s correct.  One third of the psalms are classified as lamentations.

Music Tuesday: B. B. King, In Memoriam

It was with great sadness to learn a couple of weeks ago the great blues legend B.B. King passed away.  He died on May 14^th.  From Billboard, which wrote a magnificent obituary and worth reading every word of it:

B.B. King, the last of the Southern-born blues musicians who defined modern electric blues in the 1950s and would influence scores of rock and blues guitarists, has died. He was 89.

The Mississippi-born guitarist, who had suffered from Type II diabetes for two decades, died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT Thursday at his home in Las Vegas, his attorney Brent Bryson tells the AP. In October, King fell ill during a show and after being diagnosed with dehydration and exhaustion, canceled his concert tour and had not returned to touring at the time of his death.

With his trusty Gibson guitar Lucille, King developed his audiences in stages, connecting with African-Americans region by region in the 1950s and '60s, breaking through to the American mainstream in the '70s and becoming a global ambassador for the blues soon thereafter, becoming the first blues musician to play the Soviet Union.

I don’t know what’s left to say about B. B. King.  He was truly one of the greats, a great vocalist, a great guitarist, and a great song writer.

Born Riley King on Sept. 16, 1925, in the Mississippi Delta near Itta Bena,  he was raised on a cotton farm by his maternal grandmother, Elnora. His mother died he was 9, his grandmother when he was 14. He picked cotton on a plantation in Indianola, Miss., and his first recording, made in 1940, was the “Sharecropper Record” in 1940.

King learned the guitar by studying Jefferson, Walker, Lonnie Johnson and his cousin, Booker “Bukka” White, who taught him the finer points of guitar.

“I guess the earliest sound of blues that I can remember was in the fields while people would be pickin’ cotton or choppin’ or something,’ ” King recalled in a 1988 interview with Living Blues. “When I play and sing now, I can hear those same sounds that I used to hear then.”

He believed gospel singing was a path to success and in 1943 joined the Famous St. John Gospel Singers, which was featured on WGRM, a gospel radio station. He sang in church on Sundays, then changed hats in the evenings to play for tips on the street corners of Indianola.

That same year he joined the Army, but his stay lasted less than three months. He spent his service days driving a tractor on a Delta plantation and his weekends at Indianola music spots soaking up the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Robert Nighthawk. At that time, he decided he would attempt to play blues rather than gospel.

I should say that King’s style of blues did not initially resonate with me when I was younger.  He used a big band ensemble more so than any other of the great blues legends, giving it a jazzy texture which struck me as out of the true Mississippi Delta blues tradition.  But in time it did grow on me.  I remember seeing King at his New York City blues club once (gosh, I wish I could remember when that was) and watching him live persuaded me over.  Forget the arrangement, he really was a great guitarist.  From Billboard:

King, whose best-known song was "The Thrill is Gone," developed a commercial style of the blues guitar-playing long on vibrato and short, stinging guitar runs while singing almost exclusively about romance. Unlike the musicians who influenced him, Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, for example, or his contemporaries Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf whose music bore geographic identities, King's music was not tethered to the style heard at the Mississippi plantation he was born on or the Beale Street sound in Memphis where he first established his career.

He took rural 12-bar blues and welded it to big city, horn driven ensembles populated with musicians who understood swing and jazz, but played music that worked a groove and allowed King's honey-sweet vocals and passionate guitar licks to stand out. His solos often started with a four- or five-note statement before sliding into a soothing, jazzy phrase; it's the combination of tension and release that King learned from gospel singers and the jazz saxophonists Lester Young and Johnny Hodges.

Well let’s sample some of his work.

Here’s what I mean about the band arrangement mixed with his beautifully lyrical guitar riffs.

But then he could get down with traditional blues arrangement just like the best of them.

And he could just capture an emotion.  He understood that the blues are about a core emotion.

As a musician, and especially a bluesman, King had regrets in how he had not been the best father in the world.  He fathered fifteen children with several women, and he married two of them.  There is an interview (I searched but couldn’t find it) where he confesses and lives up to his mistakes.  In the end, he made peace with his sins.  I just love this Sinner’s Prayer he does with Ray Charles.

Finally one has to end a B. B. King retrospective with his greatest hit, possibly the greatest blues song ever written and recorded. 

I could listen to that song every day of my life.  B. B. you may be gone, but thrill is still there.  Rest in eternal light.