Teardrop Mandolin, Cornball Fervor
David Lindley takes it all back to The Cheeseburger Standard
Most people recognize David Lindley’s cartoon outburst from Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out/Stay” medley from Running on Empty (#20, 1978), if not the Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs surf-doo-wop source from 1960. I saw him multiple times in Boston and Newport, and allmusic.com lists sessions for acts as varied as James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Lonnie Mack, and Iggy Pop. This review ran in the Boston Phoenix in 1988. Lindley’s death two years back (March 21, 1944-March 3, 2023) left a giant hole where silly once thrived.
DRESSED MODESTLY (FOR HIM) in neon red polyester pants and an ornate '70s flower-print shirt, David Lindley, an ex-hippie, pop-eclectic virtuoso of string instruments, began his show with El Rayo-X at the Paradise last Friday with "Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” hustling the Temptations down to Kingston.
Bearing into the song with giddy organ riffs, searching for redemption as much as anguish in its bald refrain, the band transformed this previously untouchable classic into both a cry of disenchantment and a romp of rejuvenation. As keyboardist William "Smitty" Smith traded gospel wails with bassist Jorge Calderón's winsome verses ("Mama I'm dependin' on you to tell me the truth"), the interpretation flaunted the band's ensemble prowess without violating the intensity and depth of sadness embedded in the original. When it was over, Lindley stepped to the microphone and announced his candidacy for president: "When I'm elected," he pledged, "everything's gonna change. We're going back to the cheeseburger standard."
Switching to teardrop electric mandolin for his "Hands Like a Man," he grabs tight onto its revolving melodic hook and promptly extends all his comic moves into kick-ass hormonal bliss-out. Lindley projects so much lovable kookiness that any song he sings turns into a platform for his personality…
Like Nick Lowe in a good mood, Lindley is an out-of-control chop-and-channel man of pop: he chews up standards and spits them out refurbished as pleasure bromides in their own right (this time he reggae-fied both "Twist and Shout" and "Let the Good Times Roll"). As the one who chirps the falsetto punchline on Jackson Browne's remake of Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' 1960 doo-wop hit, "Stay," he makes you wish more of his whacked-out hilarity had rubbed off on his former boss. With a bottomless faith in the virtues of reggae and ska's offbeat uplift and the grunge of old blues and R&B, Lindley completely reimagines these evergreens. Unlike Michael Doucet, who recently dressed some of the same vintage tunes in sterilized Cajun clothing, he reshapes the bones under the bodice.
On his latest, Very Greasy (produced by Linda Ronstadt), Lindley coats Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance?" with a renewed sense of possibilities, not mere nostalgia or crass boogie expediency. Not that he is above being crass when he needs to be: the B-movie minor-mode guitar twang he injects in "Do You Wanna Dance?" has just the right cornball fervor. Switching to teardrop electric mandolin for his "Hands Like a Man," he grabs tight onto its revolving melodic hook and promptly extends all his comic moves into kick-ass hormonal bliss-out. Lindley projects so much lovable kookiness that any song he sings turns into a platform for his personality. When he takes on Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" (which became "Werewolves of Boston"), you'd swear it was written with Lindley in mind. His face has a silly-putty malleability—his grimace is as delightful as his leer, and both expressions spill into his material. First Smith derails Zevon with a cheap shot of "Chopsticks" in the middle, and then Lindley slides into a venomous guitar solo, snagging the song's xenophobic contours between howls.
For all his cunning, Lindley can be arid, flip, and outré and in the next moment strike an affectingly humanist pose—his appeal lies in how he gets away with both. Missing from his live set was Very Greasy's "Talking to the Wino Too," an acoustic ode to those homeless who roam the dream factory of Los Angeles. Also missing was the finale, "Tiki Torches at Twilight" (Dan Quayle's idea of a hoedown): "Put away the axes, and pay those taxes/Let's all get normal at the lu- au," Lindley sings. Social satires like this help you forgive him such vacuous romps as "Texas Tango," even though his band punches everything up nicely. Mocking the serious with the backbite of inanity and trampling on pop pieties with outlandish self-parody (which smacks of truth) and what-me-worry nonchalance (which inspires trust), David Lindley is the great unsung King of Crudity, his court an uncommonly accomplished troupe of true believers.
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David Lindley and El Rayo-X on discogs.com
David Lindley, official site, with live stuff and merch
David Lindley on wikipedia.org, allmusic.com,
Kaleidoscope, Pulsating Dreams (compilation), Lindley’s early psych-rock band
Obituaries: The Guardian by Robin Denselow, The NYTimes by Alex Williams, Rolling Stone by David Browne, The LA Times by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, NPR (includes Mountain Stage links)
Videos: Rockapalast 1982, and a bunc of sets with Ry Cooder
trying to be amused
noises off
Here’s what’s what: the Notes file (“Orwell, Arendt, Postman, they all lowballed the crap out of it…”), and don’t forget to vote in the Cher memoir narrator poll…
Check the archives for interviews with Preston Lauterbach, author of Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King; Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist; and the thin side of Led Zeppelin’s heavy.
links gone wild: the riley rock index: obits, bylines, youtube finds, reference sites, pinterest, beacons.ai, random deep link
El Rayo-X is one of my Top 10 favorite albums. I bought it on vinyl when it was first released. I knew Lindley from his work on early Jackson Browne albums where he played multiple guitars and violin. Most of the tracks on El Rayo-X are old R&B classics. Highlights include “Don’t Look Back”, “Your Old Lady”, “Ain’t No Way Baby” and the Isley’s “Twist and Shout”. It’s a fun listen from beginning to end!