Nostalgia, pure, simple, awesome.
Bruce Springsteen: 41 Years on Thunder Road from Phil Whitehead on Vimeo.
Monthly Archives: March 2016
The Only Ones, City of Fun
Another great Only Ones tune.
Covered by Come, perhaps unnecessarily but effectively, in a Peel Sessions show in 1993.
What’s striking about the difference between these two versions is first, Peter Perrett’s voice, which is distinctive, assertive, brash.
But also, while Come rock it hard, the original is full of production tricks. Shifts of focus, subtle volume emphases, this is record making, while Come are playing live. The only known cover of this excellently energetic and melancholy tune.
Great Song
I haven’t been around much cuz this is the busy season, my apologies, but this one popped up today and it’s so great. The drummer in the Only Ones, Mike Kellie, also played with Spooky Tooth and early solo Peter Frampton. The guitar player, one John Perry, plays his ass off.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer, In The Beginning
By Surka – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8345595
They keep dying, and they will keep dying. We will keep dying, I hope not too fast.
Keith Emerson was one third of a supergroup power trio that was huge in the early 70s, riding a crest of progressive pseudo-classical rock (along with Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues, King Crimson and many others) in the maw of punk. And then they were over, for a while.
ELP were notable for some very good songs, like this one, which includes a striking acoustic guitar part by Greg Lake, and also monstrous bombast at times, which was all part of the fun. These guys were rock stars at the height of rock stardom as an unalloyed privilege, which only makes them figuratively immortal.
Song of the Week – Turn to Me, Plastic Penny; Lady Samantha, Three Dog Night; Bad Side of the Moon, Toe Fat; Rock Me When He’s Gone, Long John Baldry
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Elton John and Bernie Taupin began writing songs together in the late 60s. Many bands recognized their talent and recorded their songs before Elton John became a worldwide, cementing their songs in rock history. Today’s post recognizes a few of them.
Plastic Penny was a psychedelic pop band from England and included drummer Nigel Olsson who later became a key member of John’s recording and touring band. “Turn to Me” was on their 1969 UK released album, Currency. To the best of my knowledge “Turn to Me” never received a proper recording by John although a demo version does exist and can be found on YouTube.
“Lady Samantha” was recorded during the sessions for John’s first album, Empty Sky but wasn’t included on the original album. Instead it was released as a single in January 1969. Three Dog Night found the song and recorded a version for their second album Suitable for Framing, released in June 1969, more than a year before John would gain stardom in the US with his first hit “Your Song”, released in October 1970 and peaked in the charts at #8 in January 1971.
Toe Fat’s recording of “Bad Side of the Moon” was on an album released in May 1970. The song came from the Elton John sessions but wasn’t on that 2nd album. It was the B-side to the single release of “The Border Song”, another cut from Elton John. It also came out on the live 11/17/70, a radio broadcast from WABC (later WPLJ) in NYC, that was released in the US in April 1971. Toe Fat featured multi-instrumentalist Ken Hensley who left the band to start the hard rock band Uriah Heep.
Long John Baldry recorded two albums with an interesting concept. Each had one side produced by Rod Stewart and the other by Elton John. His 1971 album It Ain’t Easy included a John/Taupin song called “Rock Me When He’s Gone.” This song was written during John’s Madman Across the Water sessions but didn’t make it onto the album. John’s version didn’t see the light of day until the 1992 release of his set of unreleased recordings, Rare Masters.
Enjoy… until next week.
Night Music: Jefferson Airplane, “Volunteers”
Since Paul Kantner passed away recently, I have been seriously into listening more and more and deeper and deeper into the catalog of his fantastic band.
Last weekend I was in Phoenix for LABR, and I wound up having a great discussion about music with Sirius/XM’s Kyle Elfrink.
We talked about a lot of stuff, however, Kyle asked me who my favorite bass player was and I said Jack Cassady. “Who,” asked Kyle? Kyle is in his early 30’s meaning he was born long after the Airplane split up, so he certainly can be forgiven this oversight which I promptly corrected by sending the link to The Other Side of This Life from Bless its Pointed Little Head.
However, while checking that video out I first stumbled onto this version of Volunteers the band played when inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Of course the retired Grace Slick was absent, but the rest of the band was there full force. I think what I love–what being an old guy who is proud to call #iambecomingabesimpson my very own hash tag–is the band core of Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Balin, and Cassady, look so neat and trim and nattily attired, yet they still kick the shit out of the song.
The bonus was I stumbled onto this fantastic interview with Kantner and Slick who reminisce about touring with The Doors and Jim Morrison, the first time both bands were in Europe. Its awesome.
Jeff Beck, You Know What I Mean
I’d forgotten that Blow By Blow was produced by George Martin.
Lucinda Williams, Dust
I knew Lucinda Williams had a new album coming out, but I guess it’s already in stores (as if there were stores).
Bob Lefsetz wrote a glowing piece about the song Dust, which he found on Spotify in a recommended playlist. It’s a typical Williams rant of woe (inspirational lyric “Even your thoughts are dust”), and she does these darkly and with a sonic charge on all her albums since Essence, maybe, and while it’s hard for me to get fired up by them any more (even though I’m sure this is about the death of her father, a great poet, who died last year), Lefsetz is right that the two guitar parts are gorgeous and compelling, and the song is incantatory.
Plus, the drumming is fantastic and so important.
The guitarists are the great Bill Frissell and a guy named Eric Leisz, who has played in Clapton’s band. Here’s the song:
Nice, right?
Lefsetz’s glowing piece doesn’t stay glowing, because he discovered that if he wanted to hear the rest of the album he would have to buy a CD, and who does that (apart from Moyer)?
And he’s right. No album on Spotify. I subscribe to Google Music, and the album isn’t there either. This seems so backward!
But I wonder if Lefsetz gets the position of artists like Williams (and Iris Dement, too, who has a new album out only available as CD or downloaded files–for the same price). They have toured long and hard and in support of deep and solid bodies of work. Their audience is old, like me, and the chance of them having a big airplay hit that racks up Spotify plays are pretty small.
The business is in transition, and it kind of makes sense to me for artists like this to hold onto the old model, not stream right away, and see if they can make a go getting the physical media fetishists to pay real cash for their CDs.
They’ll have plenty of time to collect the tiny residuals checks from the streaming services later.
Obit: Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
There have already been a gazillion words written about Sir George Martin, musical guru and director who shaped the Beatles sound as well as what it would become.
Martin passed away this morning, at age 90, and since there will now be a gazillion more words, I will simply give you Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End, but, there is a slight caveat.
At LABR last weekend, while talking about the Beatles I learned my more than musical savvy mates Steve Gardner and Brian Walton had never noticed the three guitar wielding members of the Fab 4 trade licks at the end of The End.
Check it out. They trade fours, in the order of Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon.
Peace out Sir George.
Rosco Gordon, Just a Little Bit and Booted
At dinner the other night, my friend Walker talked about this guy, whose piano playing was an influence on Theophilus Beckford, the Jamaican piano player who was a reggae pioneer. I’d heard the story of r and b radio in New Orleans drifting over to the Islands, and helping germinate ska’s syncopation, but didn’t have a name to put on it.
Another story on Gordon’s Wikepedia page is about Sam Phillips selling the master of Gordon’s tune Booted to both RPM records and Chess records. Both labels released it as a single, and the RPM version went to No. 1 on the R and B chart. Afterwards, RPM and Chess made a deal. RPM kept Gordon, while Chess signed Howlin’ Wolf.