"This shoulda been a post." That's what I had written when this was a comment. Alrighty then!
Marls wins. Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues" was named for Deacon Jones.
On the origin of the song's name, Donald Fagen says, it was inspired by football player Deacon Jones, as they like the sound of his name: "It also had two syllables, which was convenient, like 'Crimson.'" The song, however, is really about "the ultimate outsider, the flip side of the dream, boy-o . . . call me Deacon Blues."
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues
Apparently Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones was also a crooner, and in the late 60's he was fronting War (and its earlier iterations) on the LA soul scene. That's when ex-Animals lead singer Eric Burdon found them and joined up. Enter... Eric Burdon and War. Check out "Spill the Wine" below.
And when you do, please keep an eye out for Danish import Lee Oskar on harp. His words:
I was this white, curly-headed guy and I came to America to make it in the music business. That was my whole ambition to come to the United States. So I met first Hugh Masekela and Stew Levine, and they put me up for bit and then it was back to living on on the streets, and then I met Eric Burdon. And with Eric Burdon, he wanted to form a new band, and so he and I went to a club in North Hollywood that was called the Rag Doll, but we went to check out this band and the band was backing up a famous football player named Deacon Jones. When I walked in with Eric, Deacon was doing these one-arm pushups, singing a love song and I’d be pretty intimidated… a [guy doing a] one-arm pushup, singing, “I love you, baby.” And so, I jumped up onstage. And it was just packed with people in there; everybody wanted to make a record deal back then. And the next day I was sitting around the swimming pool in Hollywood with the nucleus of that band that was called Nightshift, and Eric and myself. And that became the backup band that I was part of [War], and that’s how it pretty much happened.
His harmonicas are famous now.
After "Spill the Wine" charted, Burdon's asthma kicked in onstage and made him say "I gotta get out of here if it's the last thing I ever do," the rest of the gang removed his name from the marquee and pressed on.
Cisco Kid. Low Rider. And yes, "Why Can't We Be Friends?" -- a terrific tune about getting along in this mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. Featuring, according to los interwebs, Deacon Jones on some of the many vocals.
There's a lot fascinating about this, and Deacon Jones, the man who purportedly coined the term "quarterback sack" (and who would be 3rd all-time in that NFL category if they kept that stat during his era), was perhaps the most interesting man in the world in the mid-1970's. Or maybe it was Clifford Ray.Now ya know.
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