The Joy of Musical Discovery

Why I resolve to quit skipping opening bands

This past weekend I attended two Tedeschi Trucks Band shows at Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox Theatre. As I lingered in the gorgeous lobby preshow, I heard what I thought was a familiar song from the opening act, Vincent Neil Emerson. “Yes,” I confirmed when I walked into the theatre, “that’s definitely ‘Cod’ine.’”

Vincent Neil Emerson, Fox Theatre 6/23/23. @sweetgrassphotos

I have a somewhat circuitous history with this track, and with the drug itself.¹

I first heard it in the ‘aughts by Oakley Hall, a Brooklyn-based band, who included it on their second album: Oakley Hall “Cod'ine.” I’m a sucker for harmony vocals, and Patrick Sullivan and Rachel Cox just SLAY them here.

I didn’t realize it was a cover until late last year, when my beloved Mother Hips released it as a single from their latest album, When We Disappear: The Mother Hips “Codine.” The Hips’ take leans heavily on a garage rock arrangement and lacks the harmony vocals of the Oakley Hall version.² But it still kicks.

I now know it as a Buffy Sainte-Marie original.

Serendipitously (or was it really?), PBS was showing a new documentary about Sainte-Marie, CC, a folksinger and Native activist, member of Piapot Cree First Nation.³

I was in my seat for Emerson’s full set Saturday night and heard him mention his own Choctaw-Apache roots as he introduced “Cod’ine.” I stayed in the moment and caught no photos or video, so this version from Youtube is gonna have to suffice:

Bringing it even closer to home, after learning “Cod’ine” wasn’t an Oakley-Hall original, which came after hearing the Mother Hips’ cover and about the same time I watched the documentary, I queued up the sole album from Butch Trucks’s 31st of February, and there it was: “Cod’Ine” (as the record listed it).

I’ve rarely listened to The 31st of February, released on the notable folk label Vanguard Records in 1968. The lineup included Butch on drums with guitarist Scott Boyer and bassist David Brown. The album is folk-rock with a major emphasis on the folk such that by September 1968, they joined forces with Duane and Gregg in an attempt to beef up their sound. The group recorded demos that Vanguard Records ultimately rejected. The 31st of February split up soon after. Within six months, Butch and Gregg would join Duane’s newest project: the Allman Brothers Band.

The September 1968 session is significant as it’s the first time Duane records with a future member of the Allman Brothers Band: Butch Trucks.

Here’s what I wrote in Play All Night!⁴
BUY HERE

“Morning Dew” was the second track by a Canadian folksinger Butch had recorded. Sainte-Marie’s “Cod’Ine” closes Side A of their only record. At 6:20, it is the longest song on the album. The band plays a pretty psychedelic arrangement. David Brown’s bassline drives the track, offering a counterpoint to Scott Boyer’s vocals and lightly strummed, vibrato-heavy guitar. Butch lays off his drums for the most part, adding only accents.

It never really lands for me but listening to it I hear hints of their ferocious take on “Morning Dew” with Duane and Gregg (an arrangement they probably learned from the Jeff Beck Group).

“Cod’Ine” is an interesting track in the development of the Allman Brothers Band’s sound and also approach. Bands that make it playing original music often turn to familiar songs and melodies. The key is to create something original with the arrangement that also attracts listeners. To my ears, the 31st of February succeeded with the former—it is a unique arrangement—but much less so on the latter. The song is a little ponderous, building something, but never quite getting there.

More importantly “Cod’Ine,” like “Morning Dew” after it, shows Butch, like Duane, was willing to take chances with music. Six months later, the drummer, the guitarist, and his brother Gregg would join Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson and rework Donovan’s folk song “There is a Mountain”⁵ into “Mountain Jam,” an improvisational tour-de-force featuring solos from all six band members.

Back to “Cod’ine”…

To recap, here’s my family tree with the song and the year I learned about it

• Oakley Hall “Cod'ine” (~2008) >

• The Mother Hips “Codine” (2022) >

• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s original (2022) >

• 31st of Feburary (2023) >

• Vincent Neil Emerson (last weekend see above) >

• any number of versions I’ve discovered today while doing research⁶

Sainte-Marie wrote “Cod’ine” after she was prescribed and ultimately became addicted to the drug. She released her original on 1964’s It’s My Way!

The song is a pretty gripping account of addiction and withdrawal. Sainte-Marie addresses her frustration with a doctor who prescribed what he led her to believe was a harmless remedy for a bronchial infection:

Stay away from the cities; stay away from the town,
Stay away from the man pushin' codeine around,⁷
Stay away from the stores where the remedy is fine,
For better your pain than be caught on cod'ine.⁸

Turns out, there’s been dozens of covers of the tune. I’ve no idea where the 31st of February learned the song, but it first appeared on Sainte-Marie’s It's My Way! released on Vanguard Records in 1964.

“Cod’ine” has long been a staple of the San Francisco scene. Quicksilver Messenger Service recorded it for the 1968 film Revolution; the Charlatans’ 1965(?) recording inspired Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips:

“When we were teenagers we were on a road trip in the Great Basin with my older brother and some of his friends. They had this cassette tape with a lot of weird music on it and one night at the campfire this song came on and freaked us out,” Tim Bluhm explained. “He wouldn’t tell us who it was but it stuck with us. We later discovered that it was the Charlatans covering a Buffy Sainte-Marie song.”⁹

That’s where I connected “Cod’ine” to my wider musical world. Through the Hips, who learned it from the Charlatans, a somewhat obscure early psychedelic San Francisco band, I discovered the Oakley Hall track I’d been listening to for well over a decade wasn’t an original.

Through the PBS documentary, I learned about Sainte-Marie’s decades-long activism and fierce advocacy for Native people. Which made it all the more sweet when Vincent Neil Emerson gave her a shout-out on Saturday night at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.

So there you have it, my circuitous route to “Cod’ine,” a stone-cold banger from the great Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Finally, I gotta quit skipping the opening bands.

They are artists the headliner has curated for me for the evening. I know how damn good my music recommendations are—why would a band I love be any different?

Thanks for being here y’all.

Bob 🍄

ps: Keep an eye on Vincent Neil Emerson. That dude was hella good. His voice, his stage presence, his songs, his band. I enjoyed the hell out of him and look forward to catching many more of his shows. Stone cold honky tonk country.

pps: Please share this with at least one person you think might enjoy it. I’ll make it easy for you and give you a button:

1. I’m allergic to such an extent that in 7th grade I was rushed to the ER in the middle of the night when I broke my collarbone because my throat was closing up.

2. Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono of the Hips are INCREDIBLE harmony singers together.

3. I’m genuinely surprised there was no Sainte-Marie in my folks’ record collection. They shared a love for folk music, particularly Canadians Ian and Sylvia, who were also on Vanguard Records.

4. Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East or atfillmoreeastbook.com.

5. Donovan reached #11 with “There is a Mountain” in September 1967. My dude Richard Brent of the Big House Museum makes a very credible case Duane may have gotten his arrangement from Herbie Mann’s 1968 version.

6. Including Hole, my wife’s least favorite band.

7. She’s talking about doctors and pharmacists here. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same…

8. Always makes me think of the “Joe’s got a cough” verse in “Torn and Frayed.”

9. Source: jambase.com/article/mother-hips-codine-cover. Anyone else have a similar story with an older family member holding out on the name of a great band? Mine’s 28th Day “Pages Turn,” which my cousin’s friend put on a mix in the 80s.