My friend Vincent pointed out that the backup singers are perfectly synched with head flips in this Aretha Franklin cover of a Burt Bachrach/Hal David tune, which is awesome.
This is not a rock song, not really an R&B song, but Happy Birthday Aretha. Nobody else could make this song mean so much.
I’m listening to the Kinks Kronikles, a double album I bought when it came out. It was a curated sample of some hits, some b-sides, and some rarities, which John Mendelson compiled. For me it defines the ur Kinks, the Kinks I grew up with. Here’s a link to the album:
Victoria is a gorgeous pop song about the days of Queen Victoria, a paean to old values, namely colonial conquest, set in a jazzy orchestrated brilliantly complex and simple rock setting. Whew.
Village Green Preservation Society mixes satire and house frocks, with rock drums, to somehow describe a shambling beautiful world where NIMBY and progressivism meet. God Save Donald Duck and Strawberry Jam.
I’m writing about this because I’ve been listening to this album pretty repetitively the last few weeks. It’s a compilation album, a compilation by a rock writer, but like the Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons, it captures the many facets of the band in some ways better than their regular elpees.
Berkeley Mews is a barroom stomp of classes clashing, and a favorite song of mine.
Holiday in Waikiki is an odd song, a Chuck Berry riff, about getting scammed on vacation. The vibe is surprisingly similar to the Sex Pistols’ Holiday In The Sun. In other words, catchy as hell.
Willesden Green is a country lope about going back to Willesden, a nostalgic bit of cowboy rock, apparently satirically talking about live in Willesden as a utopia of a sort. This is Zadie Smith territory. Her excellent and highly recommended books White Teeth and NW are set in Willesden.
This is Where I Belong is another rocker, a plaintive and truthful cry of the heart, which says, I have no ambitions to get out of town. Which is exactly the opposite of most every rock song. An anthem for slackers, long before there were slackers.
Waterloo Sunset is a pop song about, well, looking out the window and being totally happy because of the sunset. But the point isn’t the point of the song. This is a lovely ode, set in a rock tempo, to taking solace from the sunset. It’s really beautiful about just how freaking nice a good sunset is.
David Watts is a strict tempo song about a regular guy, who wishes he could be strong and smart like some guy named David Watts. The twist is the David Watts won’t go out with all the local girls who fancy him, but Davies ends by saying he still wishes he could be like David Watts. The Jam covered this song, a perfect match.
Dead End Street has that ballroom gait, and a tale out of La Boheme. But the way the chorus responds to the cold depravity of the narrator’s story, is rebellious and rocking. Like much of Kink Kronickles, the orchestration is complex, while the rhythms are solid (if variable). I would call this a great song, but so were almost all the songs before.
Shangri La has Ray limning the same themes of privilege versus doing your job, with a guitar and some other instruments. Plus harmonies. Simple becomes something else in a hurry, but the fact is that Ray is writing songs about stuff no one else is writing pop songs about. This is great, stomping orchestral rock by the time it is through. Well done.
There is a coda about water rates and contradictions and other stuff. Which rocks and reassures and reminds us all about the crap of classes and dreams. Plus rolling trap drums, make this all urgent and powerful and enduring.
There is a whole lot more great music from the Kinks on this album, which for some reason better describes them than any of their individual elpees. Hell, we didn’t even get to Lola. But it’s here.
I should post notes on the rest of this fantastic album soon.
There is so much going on here. Muddy seems to be copping to the idea he’s not up to the barely legal conversation. That’s the opposite of the mannish boy. But whatever is going on with that pales beside Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson’s guitar, which is bigger than life.
On this album, a live album, Johnny Winter makes some excellent appearances. He’s a great guitar player, but lordy, Luther makes a fairly straight blues into something else altogether. I know I’m sati-fied.
This is an all-time great from the beginning of that era in soul. That music was experimental and is funky like a motherfucker. Absolutely it is rocknroll.
I was listening to Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy yesterday. It’s the Eno elpee I’ve never owned, and while I like the title I was a little put off by much of the music. Not bad, just hard and brittle for the most part, with lots of Englishy dancehall references.
So tonight I put on Here Come the Warm Jets, which is a great record. But I hadn’t listened to it for a while, and when Baby’s on Fire came on I had to post. It is incredible. Incredible in, like, why did we ever need another rock song after this?
Never thought of this as a rocknroll song but they rock the shit out of it. I heard that Keith wasn’t happy with this song in particular and that’s why the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was never aired. Typical musician. Embrace the garage, Keith.
Also notable in that Brian Jones is still around. Maybe Keith was pissed because the camera is on Jones when Keith is playing.
Those solo records he made in the mid 70s are notebooks of sounds that he gave to Talking Heads, Devo and U2, but they also stand up on their own. This one from Before and After Science comes with a neat video, and like Eno’s other elpees of the period has Phil Collins playing drums, which was probably cool at the time but in retrospect is just a little paradigm shifting.
I can’t believe we haven’t posted this one before. This is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Willy DeVille’s romantic songs kill me. This is pitch perfect, as is the whole Cabretta album. This music was taken at the time as some sort of revivalism, which as Gene said in the earlier post wasn’t handled all that much by the critics of the time, but that view misses the genius that somehow transforms that old time into the modern age. These songs aren’t oldie goldie mimicry but cries from the heart that use the languages available to express themselves most fully and directly.
In other words, rock ‘n’ roll.
One way to go with Mink Deville is the hard rock. Go here:
The sound of this YouTube clip and all those I listened isn’t as rich as the album, but this is an extraordinary rock ‘n’ roll performance from top to bottom.
We could write tributes to those who have passed nearly every day. Today it is for Bonny Rice, whose biggest hit was released as Sir Mack Rice, who was a member of the Falcons in Detroit (with Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, and Joe Stubbs), but who is best known for writing Wilson Pickett’s hit, Mustang Sally, and cowriting the Staple Singers’ Respect Yourself (with Luther Ingram).
The best anecdote from the NY Times’s obituary today: The song was originally called Mustang Mama, but Aretha Franklin, who played piano on the demo, convinced him to change the name.
Here’s the Wilson Pickett version, which was an R&B and pop hit. After the song there are some details about the writing of the song.
