When in doubt go to the roots.
Muddy Waters, She’s 19 Years Old
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.
Song of the Week – Can’t Stand It, Wilco
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Back in the early 80s I was a fan of Uncle Tupelo – the brainchild of Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. When they split to form new bands – Tweedy with Wilco and Farrar with Son Volt – I was going to follow both.
Since then, Tweedy has come out on top. Wilco has been a hugely successful, critically acclaimed band and Tweedy has had further success as a producer and collaborator.
Wilco started covering the same alt-country terrain that was staked out by Uncle Tupelo. They would eventually record the adventurous Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and other innovative albums. The bridge between was Summerteeth (1991).
On Summerteeth, the band changed their recording style from “live in the studio” to more heavy reliance on overdubs and post production. Today’s SotW is “Can’t Stand It”, the lead off track from Summerteeth.
In fact, “Can’t Stand It” was originally recorded in a simpler form. But the record company suits at Reprise intervened and persuaded the band that it needed to be remixed to make it a more suitable single for a broader radio audience. I’ve never heard the original (I can’t believe it wasn’t included in the “expanded” reissue of Summerteeth along with the other bonus cuts) but I’ve read that they shortened the bridge and added bells. (Other than Naked Eyes version of “Always Something There To Remind Me”, who puts bells on a rock song?)
The lyrics tell the age old story of a broken relationship. This time it seems to center on the lies or misunderstandings between the couple.
The way things go
You get so low
Struggle to find your skin
Hey ho
Look out below
Your prayers will never be answered again
Phones still ring
And singers sing
Speakers are speaking in code
What now
Well anyhow
Our prayers will never be answered again
Depending on when you became aware of Wilco might affect how well you like this song. Fans of the later albums might find this too poppy. But I think the song has soul and the spirituality of the line “prayers will never be answered again.”
Enjoy… until next week.
Skoal, Brother
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.
Compare and Contrast: For the Love of Money
Live at Daryl’s House is this oddball show. The idea. Musicians go to Daryl Hall’s house and record songs with Daryl Hall.
When it started Daryl Hall seemed to be bankrolling these video casts, which were available on his website, and it was hard to see how this was a sustainable program. But the quality was always exemplary, the pairings interesting, the musicians great.
I came upon this O’Jays show tonight. Here’s For the Love of Money at Daryl’s House:
It’s not my favorite O’Jays song, it’s kind of a Temps’ rip, but there’s lots to like in that live version. Including Daryl Hall’s vocals . Here’s the much-more restrained original:
Song of the Week – Johnny Come Home, Fine Young Cannibals
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
I’ve always found the history of the Fine Young Cannibals to be very strange and confusing – at least the ending.
The band came together in 1984 when The English Beat (“Mirror in the Bathroom”, “I Confess”) broke up and two of its members, Andy Cox (guitar) and David Steele (bass) struck out on their own to form a new band. They auditioned hundreds of singers before they found the unique voice of Roland Gift.
A year later they released their first album which contained a clever reworking of Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” and their own “Johnny Come Home” which is today’s SotW.
That album and those songs were big hits around most of the world but received little attention in the US other than on alternative rock radio.
It took the band another 3 years to release their second album, The Raw and the Cooked (1989). All they had to show for the time between was a bunch of songs they recorded for the soundtracks to the films Tin Men and Something Wild, a few of which later ended up on The Raw and the Cooked.
That album was huuuuge! It reached #1 in the US, UK and Australia and spawned #1 singles hits with “She Drives Me Crazy and “Good Thing.” (I remember spinning both continuously when I was a club DJ in Boston.)
But this is where the story goes off the rails. The band never recorded a follow up. How could that happen? Was there tension among the band members? Did someone become ill? Were they trying to get out of a bad recording contract? The answer to all of these questions is no.
In a 2014 interview with the Sunday Express, Gift explained:
“I fully expected the band to carry on and make a few more albums, but to be honest, I’m not sure what happened. We just stopped functioning as a band. It was sad, really. There was a lot of pressure from people around us to sell more and more records, but music doesn’t work like that. It has to evolve naturally.”
That’s not a very satisfying explanation but it’s all we have. Too bad, because the band showed so much promise especially on the first disc. Now they’re little more than a footnote in the rock history of the 80s.
Enjoy… until next week.
The Decline of Civilization Really IS Here
Donald Trump has a chance to be a world leader?
What about this is representative of new music?
Talk about “What the Fuck?”
Song of the Week – Live in the Dark & Blues Deluxe, Jeff Beck
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
In a couple of weeks I’ll be going with a friend to see Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy. It should be a fun evening of rock and blues.
Guitar hero Jeff Beck has been the focus of the media recently, touting his new album Loud Hailer. This is the first release in six years from the 72 year old axe man and it has received pretty good notices,mostly applauding the modern sound he captures by working with the young women of London based Bones — vocalist Rosie Bones and guitarist Carmen Vandenberg.
The first SotW is “Live in the Dark” from Loud Hailer.
Many of the songs on Loud Hailer have political themes, but not “Live in the Dark.” This is just a simple sample of modern garage rock.
Although I’m digging the new release, I still relish going back to his first solo album, Truth, for great blues based rock. His band for that album had Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass with a little help from friend Nicky Hopkins (piano) on a few cuts.
The next SotW is “Blues Deluxe” from that album.
The song sounds like a live recording but I’m not sure if it really is live or just overdubbed with audience applause to make it appear that way. I can’t understand why they would do that but it doesn’t really matter.
In a 1973 article by Charles Shaar Murray in New Musical Express, he writes of “Blues Deluxe”:
“After Rod and Nicky have slugged out several identical choruses, Beck comes in for his solo, stopping the entire band to play a totally extraneous riff, and then producing assorted gabbles and screeches, finally divebombing into a minor conflagration at the bottom of the neck before leading it back into the next verse.”
Beck has always demonstrated flamboyance and independence in his playing!
True to the folk/blues tradition, Beck/Stewart avail themselves of a bit of “borrowing” for this number. It is a reworking of B.B. King’s “Gambler’s Blues.” Check it out sometime.
Enjoy… until next week.
Eno, “Baby’s on Fire”
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?
Song of the Week – Gimme Shelter, Rolling Stones; The Battle of Evermore, Led Zeppelin; Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart; The Great Gig in the Sky, Pink Floyd
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
A few years ago a film was released called 20 Feet from Stardom (2013). It’s all about the background singers whose fine work has supported so many more famous acts in the studio and on the road.
Today’s post highlights a few of my favorite examples of the value the background singers often contribute.
Merry Clayton, perhaps the most sought background singer in the rock era and one of the featured artists in 20 Feet from Stardom, provided the memorable performance on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” (1969).
In a 2013 interview on Fresh Air with NPR’s Terry Gross, Clayton told her story about the making of “Gimme Shelter.”
Well, I’m at home at about 12–I’d say about 11:30, almost 12 o’clock at night. And I’m hunkered down in my bed with my husband, very pregnant, and we got a call from a dear friend of mine and producer named Jack Nitzsche. Jack Nitzsche called and said “You know, Merry, are you busy?” I said “No, I’m in bed.” He says, “Well, you know, there are some guys in town from England and they need someone to come and sing a duet with them, but I can’t get anybody to do it. Could you come?” He said “I really think this would be something good for you.”
Mick Jagger told NPRs’ Melissa Block on All Things Considered:
“We randomly phoned up this poor lady in the middle of the night, and she arrived in her curlers and proceeded to do that in one or two takes, which is pretty amazing. She came in and knocked off this rather odd lyric. It’s not the sort of lyric you give anyone–‘Rape, murder/It’s just a shot away’– but she really got into it, as you can hear on the record.”
Clayton later lost her pregnancy to a miscarriage. Though unrelated, the association with “Gimme Shelter” made it very difficult to listen to the song for many years.
In 1970 Led Zeppelin released their acclaimed 4th album. “Stairway to Heaven” get the most attention but deep cut “The Battle of Evermore” is equally worthy. And it wouldn’t be the same without the vocal provided by Sandy Denny.
The song has the flavor of a traditional British folk song, so inviting Sandy Denny – whose pedigree was with Fairport Convention and Fotheringay – was a natural choice. Robert Plant and Denny perform a duet on this song. It is a story that references The Lord of the Rings where Plant plays the role of the narrator and Denny represents the town crier. “… Evermore” is the only Led Zeppelin song that has ever used a guest vocalist. Well played!
Maggie Bell’s effort on Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells a Story” is smaller but no less significant.
She adds harmony on the fabulous fifth verse and, along with John Baldry, sings the “every picture tells a story, don’t it” line that repeats through the end of the song. But her best part is when Stewart sings the line “Shanghai Lil never used the pill” and Bell spits out the response “she claimed that it just ain’t natural.” That seals the deal for me.
Lastly is Clare Torry’s improvised vocal on Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky.”
Torry was introduced to the band by Alan Parsons, who engineered the classic Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road. Initially reluctant, Torry agreed to the session and recorded 2 ½ takes. The final was an edit of all three takes. All pressings of the song since 2005 give Torry co-writing credit for “TGGitS.”
I can’t imagine any of these iconic rock records without the key contributions from these female supporting vocalists.
Enjoy… until next week.