There's a quality to Hank Williams' songs, a logic found deep in the harmonic structures which hold up the beautifully contoured melodies, that is still a model for songwriters in every field of popular music, not just country. It can be heard in all of his songs, but a good one to start with is "Jambalaya" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKOVPXhlnE), in which an incredibly distinctive tune is supported by seemingly simple chords. But they aren't, of course; there's a great complexity to them, and not in a predictable way either. I've still never heard a cover version of this song that I find convincing.

"Cold, Cold Heart" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQmzp-NA5PM) is another exquisitely crafted song, but I can't say that I haven't heard it done well, because of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERZo2wnaCY

In writing about Donald Fagen's tribute to Ray Charles ("What I Do" from his 2006 album, Morph the Cat), I said that irony is his primary mode, and I stand by the statement (although "default position" might've been more accurate), but it got me thinking of the important tradition of irony in American art. Perhaps its source is Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has been in the news again lately, and it's partially for this reason that Hemingway said that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn", in his famous pronouncement. The controversies, seemingly never-ending, surrounding the book are due to the language, and while the appropriateness of such language in our time is fair to debate, I don't think that it makes sense to question Twain's intentions. They're obvious. As he put it, the novel "is a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and the conscience suffers defeat". Put more bluntly, during the story, Huck comes to realize that everything he'd learned was wrong, and he was willing to stand to it, come what may.

OK, what does all of this have to do with music? Well, another great American artist, Randy Newman, has been trying to achieve similar goals in a similar way for many years. And he too has been at the center of a few firestorms - the one about "Short People" was a good one, for example. And his 1974 album, Good Old Boys, one of his finest and most complex, is a masterpiece, like Twain's, with a sound heart and good intentions. Here's "Louisiana 1927" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE) about another episode in the history of the Mississippi.

"Come Sunday", from Duke Ellington's 1943 jazz symphony entitled, Black Brown and Beige, is one of those moments at the mountaintop of music. Featuring the great Mahalia Jackson, the piece is rarified in every possible way; the performance, arrangement, lyric and melody are all awesomely beautiful. And while the recording that I found on YouTube is fine, it should be heard in the best possible version for its full appreciation.

As I was listening to it again, the thought occurred to me that much of the greatest American culture is overlooked, and that the music of artists like Ellington and Jackson should be an integral part of what young people are taught in today's schools. In my experience, students respond with the greatest interest when they are presented with the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXYK6n8PQ4&feature=fvst

Jackie Mason once said, in answering a question regarding why his comedy is "mean", that "compliments aren't funny". This helps to explain why it's been said that what comedians fear the most is sincerity. And although I wouldn't classify the tone of Donald Fagen's lyrics as comical or anything like that, I would say that irony is his primary mode. Therefore, finding a song such as "What I Do" on one of his albums (Morph the Cat, from 2006) was a real surprise, because the song is basically a straight-ahead tribute to Ray Charles (in the liner notes, Fagen calls it a "conversation between some younger version of myself and the ghost of Ray Charles"). One of the really cool things about both Fagen and Becker, as their fans know, is the way they are constantly paying tribute to the great musicians who have inspired them in the past - and the ones who do so in the present too, for that matter. But recording this song must have been a bit nerve-wracking, even for an artist of his caliber, because he had two significant problems to surmount: the aforementioned tone issue, and the fact that the music would have to be worthy of one of his heroes. Have a listen to the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQdu6ju1fBw) and a look at the lyrics (http://donaldfagen.com/disc_morphthecat.php) and see if you think that he accomplished both. I know I do.

Say Amen, Somebody, a 1982 documentary about gospel music directed by George Nierenberg, is the only movie that I would qualify as viewing essential to properly appreciate a particular style of music. There are a few others that come close: The Last Waltz comes to mind, but its subject is a band (the Band, actually) and not an entire genre. This film not only acquaints viewers with founding figures such as Thomas A. Dorsey, and great performers including the Barrett Sisters and Edgar and Edward O'Neal, but it also presents with amazing directness the feelings of involvement and community that are central to gospel music. And even though gospel has been borrowed from by virtually every major r&b artist (starting with Ray Charles), and by artists of other styles as well (jazz, rock, and country to name three), it's rarely received the musical respect it deserves. Not by people who've seen this movie, though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLgk0WMI1-Y.

One album that I've been meaning to write about for a while is Eliza Lumley's She Talks in Maths (2007), which is comprised of ten Radiohead covers done with piano jazz instrumentation and Lumley's pristine vocals. A classically-trained interpreter of early music, she treats these songs in the same respectful manner that would be appropriate for pieces by Tallis or Byrd. It makes for a very interesting listening experience, both beautiful and unsettling. And it's wonderful to hear a song such as "Black Star" in an austere setting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPwbmhk8MMY); it's a reminder that the heart of Radiohead's music is great songwriting.

Variation is one of the most important concepts in music. And no style of music does more with it than jazz. While maintaining some type of constant, usually involving melodic material and the harmonic structure, the musicians are free to add layer upon layer of ideas. In fact, one of the measures of the quality of a jazz player is how much variety they are capable of adding to a piece, during both the accompaniment and the soloing in the case of the rhythm section (i.e. bass, drums, piano and/or guitar, generally). A listener will be able to hear much more deeply into the music if he or she can pay attention to what is going on, while still being able to keep the melody and form of the song in their minds. (The musicians certainly have to do so - most improvisors like to have even the lyrics running in their minds, along with the chords and the tune.) At that point, everything that is played takes on much more meaning, because it is then heard as what it actually is: variation. So here's a great track to listen to in this way, the Standards Trio (Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette) playing "Autumn Leaves": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io1o1Hwpo8Y. Try closing your eyes and listening to the number and depth of ideas in DeJohnette's drumming. Then try using it to do the choreography for an imaginary tap dancer. Also, notice the ending, as Peacock and DeJohnette instantly follow Jarrett to an unusual conclusion that quotes from "Speak Low".