#PLAY JIMMY SWAGGART MUSIC ON ECHO PRIME PORTABLE#

Framing the violence in close-up added a nasty edge. In this original era of SNL, when the writing staff was headed by a darkly charismatic man who declared that вЂњmaking people laugh is the lowest form of comedy,вЂќ the aim was frequently something other than вЂњfunny.вЂќ Cutting a taut guitar string isnвЂ™t funny cutting six of them takes as long to do as to watch, and also isnвЂ™t good for the instrument. You donвЂ™t have to watch this for yourself to know that it wasnвЂ™t funny.

Then the three men stood in a row facing the camera, Henry grimacing, Belushi bowing, and Lightfoot shrugging вЂњWhaaa?вЂќ A close-up was tightly - pornographically, I daresay - framed on the MartinвЂ™s soundhole, as Belushi snapped all six guitar strings with a wire-cutter, Lightfoot standing like a game aristocrat getting spritzed in a Three Stooges short. When Lightfoot began to protest, John Belushi entered in Samurai dress. He told the singer his time was up, the show had to move on. Lightfoot started in on a third song but was brusquely interrupted by the host, Buck Henry. His first song, вЂњSummertime Dream,вЂќ sounded somewhat like Norman BlakeвЂ™s вЂњGinseng Sullivan.вЂќ The opening verse went: вЂњWhere the road runs down by the butternut grove, to Old Bill SkinnerвЂ™s streamвЂ¦ ItвЂ™s time for a summertime dream!вЂќ Flanking Lightfoot were a drummer, bassist, pedal steel player, and a man with a Shaun Cassidy hairdo, seated oddly downstage from the boss, mugging shamelessly and playing single-note lines through a flange effect on an early 1960s Gretsch Country Gentleman.ДЄfter his second song, a ballad addressed to moss (вЂњSpanish moss, wish you knew what I was sayinвЂ™вЂќ) that sounded somewhat like Buddy HollyвЂ™s вЂњRaining In My Heart,вЂќ a bit of business happened. (I donвЂ™t have a miraculous gift of memory itвЂ™s on Hulu.) He looked, not to put too fine a point on it, like a public-television childrenвЂ™s show host. His earnest face was haloed by permed curls. Lightfoot chose for his appearance a snug pair of bell-bottoms with a giant embroidered rose, suspenders, and wide-collared polka-dot shirt. I loved Chevy Chase and John Belushi in particular, and modeled myself on their sarcasm and cockiness. SNL in its first iteration was pure catnip for an attitudinal teen and a chrysalid comedy junkie, and reader, I was that cat. Meantime, my own allegiances were shifting, from hand-me-down music to up-yours revolt.

Later that year, вЂњWreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald,вЂќ the thousand-verse maritime disaster singalong, would mesmerize Western society. In April 1976, Lightfoot appeared as musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Nary a preteen moment was Lightfoot-free.

#PLAY JIMMY SWAGGART MUSIC ON ECHO PRIME PORTABLE#

Many was the summer afternoon I spent chopping wood in the yard, as portable speakers in tall rust-colored cabinets, jammed into open windowframes and run from our living room by lamp cord, blasted вЂњDon QuixoteвЂќ and вЂњSong For A WinterвЂ™s NightвЂќ into the North Carolina heat. We sang them as a family, harmonizing and strumming. By the time I started playing guitar, I knew many if not most of his songs by heart. My parents, connoisseurs of then-contemporary folk, revered his music and played his records without surcease or pity. I was 3 when his first American record came out. The voice is one of the first things I recall. An inoffensive radio staple, the Jim Croce of Canada, hirsute soft-seller of anodyne MOR balladry with a vaguely macho edge, the hitmaker who once upon an ice storm gave us вЂњIf You Could Read My Mind,вЂќ вЂњSundown,вЂќ вЂњCarefree Highway,вЂќ вЂњWreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald,вЂќ and вЂњRainy Day People.вЂќ For you, a comparatively normal person, Gordon Lightfoot is probably something more graspable. For me, his name conjures a queasy kaleidoscope of personae: etcher of piquant phrases, tonal source of earliest memory, curiosity, anachronism, hack, nullity.

Play jimmy swaggart music on echo prime