'Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite'

The number films, books or records that almost never make it out into production is pretty vast. Maybe the suits in the offices that make decisions about release are just too shortsighted or dumb.

Maybe the book, record or film are just not very good and are successful in spite of themselves. It's impossible to understand if something is going to make money even if everything inside of you tells it it won't.

Maxwell was in his early 20s when Columbia Records gave him complete creative control of his debut album and even allowed him to produce it. This is a kid with no history or actual fanbase needed for a Columbia release and they're giving him the keys to daddy's car.

He recorded the album and it sat on the shelf for a year for any number of reasons, which include Columbia not thinking it was going to be very successful financially.

Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite started slow on the charts although it was a critical hit. With enough singles and exposure in films and whatnot, it was certified gold a year after release and has sold two million overall.

Maybe more significantly, and I realize that the heads of Columbia can't pay their stockholders with this, is that it became a large part of the neo-soul scene that included D'Angelo and Erykah Badu. To be honest, I don't know what this really means outside of it being new, young artists doing pretty standard soul music. Listen to it and it's not unlike what others did before or after. Maybe it's all marketing.

'Sunshine Superman'

Donovan’s career is a tough one to chart. In the grand scheme of things, he was a musician, whose songs have been heard more in film soundtracks than those buying his albums. 

I first heard his name when I immersed myself in Beatles lore and knew that he had gone to India to study and meditate under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I first heard his album Sunshine Superman a few months ago and quickly realized that I heard far more Donovan than I had thought. 

His drug-tinged, hippie-anthem singles have infiltrated popular culture in just about every way possible outside of his album selling a trillion copies. 

Reading about Donovan, he was a guy waiting in the wings. He’s almost a footnote in 1960s rock music. He befriended Brian Jones, eventually marrying the Rolling Stones’ ex-girlfriend and having two kids. He taught John Lennon how to fingerpick. He rubbed elbows with Bob Dylan. He added lyrics to “Yellow Submarine.” The list of interactions with The Beatles, Rolling Stones and just about any noted musician or band from the 1960s had some sort of run-in with Donovan. 

Then he disappeared. The peak of his popularity was probably a well-documented drug bust that was followed by a series of stings against famous rock musicians. 

He broke up with his long-time producer. The flower power movement faded and folkies like Donovan faded into the background as more aggressive genres became the basis for anti-establishment music. 

Now he's a name in anecdotes and someone that sells the use of his song in movies. 

'Drugstore Cowboys'

In my late teens, I got suckered into the seedy, thrill-driven drug culture of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, which led me to Gus Van Sant’s break-out film, Drugstore Cowboys. 

I remember watching it probably a dozen times in a two or three year span and becoming obsessed with drifters and the life of a drug fiend, who do just enough property damage to freak the squares out. 

Drugs have two very simple narratives – the guys selling and the guy using. The guys selling traces back to TV series like The Wire that show a very stark, realistic picture of the turf wars that take place on urban streets. 

Drugstore Cowboys is a very clean adaptation of drug use: Users seeking high after high slowly running out of the patience or guts needed to play the game. 

As much as I watched it, I never liked Drugstore Cowboys. I thought and still think it’s poorly acted (Matt Dillon is half decent). 

There are things said and done that would never ever be done by real people, whether they’re drug addicts or not. Rick punching the wall after Nadine overdoses is especially egregious. It sorta overshadows Nadine actually dying. 

'Night Life'

If you know anything about Willie Nelson, you know that he was a songwriter before his own singing career took off. 

He wrote “These Walls,” “Pretty Paper” and “Crazy.” In the early 1960s, Nelson joined Ray Price’s touring band – Cherokee Cowboys – as bassist. In 1963, Price released the album Night Life featuring the song of the same name written by Nelson.

Early photos are interesting because of his look as the Outlaw Cowboy of the past 40 years. He’s fresh faced and often wearing a suit of some kind. No matter, he always looks like Willie with those big ears and bug eyes. 

For those seeking a source of inspiration here, note that Nelson was a ripe 30 years old when Price recorded this album. Granted, Nelson had had hit songs already with “Crazy” and “These Walls.” Still, he hadn’t had any success of his own. He wouldn’t until 1966. By then he was into his 33^rd year. 

Nelson is 79 years old, a veteran of the scene and best associated with the Outlaw Country movement of the 1970s (by then, he was approaching his 50s). 

Price is a dinosaur: A fixture of the prim and proper country and western music genre. 

By the way, Price’s just 86 and still kicking. 

'American IV: Man Comes Around'

When Johnny Cash teamed up with super-producer Rick Rubin, I didn’t bat an eyelash. I don’t begrudge an artist the opportunity to keep recording. Doesn’t mean I have to keep listening to it either. 

When the fourth installment of the American series came out – American IV: The Man Comes Around – I did not get caught up in the eerie feeling that we were all listening to a man die in stereo. Cash could’ve lived another 10 years (he was a mere 70 years old upon release … a very long, worn 70 years, mind you) and recorded another two albums of cover songs. 

However, once June Carter Cash passed away and the years of physical abuse through drugs, alcohol and general hard living caught up, it was only a matter of time. 

The Man Comes Around feels like a real labor of love. I listened to it in its entirety for the first time a few weeks ago and Cash didn’t try too much. He sang like an old man on his last leg (whether this was his decision or not is not known). 

This is an album full of pain, loss, embarrassment and regret. Cash made a long, lucrative career in penning and singing songs about packaged behavior deemed detrimental and reckless. Cash probably never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. He did hurt himself just to feel. He hung his head down low. He probably remembered a lot of friends and lovers. 

Cash had the extreme pleasure of hosting his own funeral and saying all the things he’s probably always wanted to say. 

'Rosetta'

Rosetta is the triumph of the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc. It is a sad story of a 17-year-old Rosetta who lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic mother, who's barely keeping anything together without the watchful eye of her oddly faithful daughter.

Rosetta has to hold the hand of her mother, deal with a fascist trailer park owner, catch fish in a local pond and attempt to keep a job despite her hot temper.

Emotionally complex, Rosetta's frustrations with joblessness, poverty and the idea that there will never be hope boil over and she joins the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism when she betrays a young man who had actually helped her early in the film.

Shortly after the film was released a law was passed to protect the rights of young workers like Rosetta. Although the law was already in the works before the film came out, it was called the "Rosetta Law" anyway.

The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes proving to be the pinnacle of their careers for the time being. The oddest factoid being that despite the success of the film in the 1990s and the subject matter dealing with young adults, the Dardenne brothers were into their 40s when Rosetta was made and released. 

'The Phenix City Story'

This is part documentary and part film noir. It's about Phenix City in the 1950s, an Alabama town run by the mob. Imagine Bedford Falls when George Bailey is never born: Bars, clubs, whoring, drinking, fighting and gambling.

A small cadre of citizens attempt to fight back; however, any headway is met by the strong arm of the mob's enforcers.

All based on fact, the film's pinnacle is the assassination of the attorney general nominee, who promised to clean up Phenix City.

It's one of the truly darkest films I've seen especially of the noir genre and even relatively early American cinema. It's extremely violent and bloody already.

However, one detail that really caught my attention was the murder of a little girl. It was early in the film: As the men begin taking action against the corrupt government and law enforcement, the mob goes out and kidnaps the young daughter of a African American conspirator.

The next scene shows a car driving out of control and throwing the girl's body into the front yard of the soon-to-be attorney general candidate. The girl was dead.

This is alarming on several fronts. For one, there's no clear record that any girl was murdered by the mob as part of this actual narrative. Furthermore, you don't find a lot of films that kill off children. Even the darkest, most realistic films don't include that.

Then consider that Albert Patterson, the reluctant candidate for reform, is moved only slightly. You see, at this point in the film he had no intention in running for attorney general in attempt to reform the town. It was only later when a family friend was murdered and the grand jury failed to indict the clear murderer does Patterson agree to run for office. Not the murder of a young African American girl.

The murder of the girl is not mentioned until the very end of the film when her father notes that he was prepared to take revenge for her death, but fell back on the commandment of not killing. Black or white, I would think the murder of a young girl would turn a small, provincial city in the south on its head. Seemingly, it didn't. Maybe a sign of the times or a piece of the story that no one simply cared about.

'No Other' & 'White Light'

Gene Clark was one of the founding member of The Byrds. He left the band in 1966 and struck out on a solo career that lasted about one year when he rejoined the Byrds after David Crosby left to go on and do his thing with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

It wasn't until the early-1970s that Clark found success as a solo artist with White Light and No Other. Both are beautiful country-rock records not unlike what his brethren in The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, CSN&Y, Gram Parsons and the Eagles were doing.

Two very understated and often overlooked albums and certainly and artist that doesn't get the same attention as those other names.

Clark recorded throughout the 1970s and 1980s and went into a lull of activity eventually addressing his substance abuse in the latter decade. As it turns out, it might be pretty hard to get high when you don't have any money.

Tom Petty covered "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better," a Byrds song written by Clark, on his 1989 album Full Moon Fever. The added income from the royalties set Clark back into a downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse.

In 1991, his body gave out. He had a heart attack and died at the tender age of 46. A pretty big waste for sure.