Like his longtime friend and collaborator John Prine, folk-country tunesmith Steve Goodman got his professional start in Chicago, penning advertising jingles during the day while working in clubs and bars at night. Goodmans perspicacious songwriting, which he injected with a deft sense of humor and keen observations about the human condition, will be celebrated with the upcoming reissue of two LPs originally recorded for his own groundbreaking indie label, Red Pajamas.
Available July 19th on Omnivore Recordings, Artistic Hair, a live compilation first released in 1983, and 1984s Affordable Art will be supplemented by a total of 17 previously unheard bonus tracks. Among the highlights are three cuts celebrating Goodmans lifelong allegiance to baseball, and more specifically, his beloved Chicago Cubs, with the comical A Dying Cub Fans Last Request, a 1984 bonus track, Go Cubs Go, originally released as a single for WGN Radio, and his own rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
Among the most acclaimed Goodman compositions, two are considered modern folk-country classics. City of New Orleans, a quintessential train song recorded for his 1971 debut album, became a Top 20 pop hit the following year for Arlo Guthrie. When Willie Nelson rode his version to the top of the country chart in 1984, it earned the songwriter a posthumous Grammy for Best Country Song. With uncredited assistance from Prine, Goodman crafted You Never Even Call Me by My Name, a cut from his self-titled debut LP for the Buddah label in 1971. The track would later become a Top 10 country hit for controversial outlaw performer David Allan Coe, who released it with a somewhat altered title, using the past-tense of call, and inserted a spoken epilogue suggesting that he talked Goodman into adding the litany of country-themed clichs to the final verse mama, drinking, prison, trains, trucks to turn the tune into the perfect country song. But according to author Clay Eals entertaining and exhaustive biography Steve Goodman: Facing the Music (2007, ECW Press), although Coes 1975 hit version was the first to incorporate the comical coda on record, the singers recollection of events is either faulty or fabricated. In concerts and interviews since December 1971, Goodman had credited Chicago musician Albert Williams with the inspiration for that final verse.
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Steve Goodman succumbed to leukemia at just 36 years old, just prior to the 1984 release of Affordable Art.
[This story has been updated.]
Artistic Hair track listing:
1. East St. Louis Tweedle-Dee
2. Lets Give a Party
3. Winter Wonderland
4. Elvis Imitators
5. Tico Tico
6. The Water Is Wide
7. Red Red Robin
8. Chicken Cordon Bleus
9. Old Fashioned
10. City of New Orleans
11. Three-Legged Man
12. You Never Even Called Me by My Name
Bonus Tracks
13. The I Dont Know Where Im Goin, But Im Goin Nowhere in a Hurry Blues
14. Lincoln Park Pirates
15. Wonderful World of Sex
16. Men Who Love Women Who Love Men
17. The Auctioneer
18. The Broken String Song
19. Ill Fly Away
20. Its a Sin to Tell a Lie
21. You Never Even Called Me by My Name
Afforable Art track listing:
1. If Jethro Were Here
2. Vegematic
3. Old Smoothies
4. Talk Backwards
5. How Much Tequila (Did I Drink Last Night)?
6. When My Rowboat Comes In
7. Souvenirs
8. Take Me Out to the Ball Game
9. A Dying Cub Fans Last Request
10. California Promises
11. Watchin Joey Glow
12. Grand Canyon Song
Bonus Tracks
13. Go Cubs Go (WGN Radios Cubs Theme) Steve Goodman With Chicago Cubs Chorus
14. Streets of London
15. Old Smoothies
16. Vegematic
17. Friday Night
18. Fire Escape
19. Dont Do Me Any Favors Anymore
20. It Took Me So Long