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Fifty Year Friday: Thanks and apologies

October 18, 2019

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First my apologies for last week’s post which was posted half-finished.  I thought I had scheduled it for late Friday, but discovered the incomplete post was published  Friday morning.  It must have read like I was on hallucinogenic drugs!

More importantly thank you for continuing to visit this blog.  It has been very busy for me lately, and I am sure the quality of the writing has suffered as I have such a short window to write and proofread.  Thanks for continuing to visit and read. I welcome any suggestions on improving these posts given the limited time I have right now to write them.

Will eventually delete this post after a few weeks or more, but will certainly take any comments about improving this blog to heart.

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Fifty Year Friday:King Crimson, Arzachel, Zappa, Kinks, Carpenters, Moondog

October 11, 2019

” When you want to hear where music is going in the future, you put on a King Crimson album.”  – Bill Bruford, 1995

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King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King

There is no album that I quite look back on with the same pride of purchasing as King Crimson’s “In the Court of the Crimson King.” None of my friends had previously ever heard of the band and many of them were seriously impressed when they listened to it on my dad’s stereo or even on a cassette copy I made for them. Quite simply there was no other music available that was even remotely similar to the sound of this first Crimson album.

Released on October 10, 1969 (and purchased by me about a year later in 1970), some may debate if this was or was not the very first progressive rock album chronologically, but in my mind, it’s the first in terms of overall rank and importance.  It incorporated jazz and hard rock elements into a refinement of the hard rock, soft rock and psychedelic rock music that had been available prior to October 1969.

The album opens up with “21st Century Schizoid Man” — and it sounded back in those very early seventies as if the music did belong to the 21st Century.  I had never heard any rock harder edged than this — music that makes Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith easy listening or  adult contemporary.

The contrast between the psychotically intense “21st Century Schizoid Man” and the languidly melodic, cool and relaxed “I Talk to the Wind” that follows, with its beautiful flute accompaniment, is comparable, yet different in scale, to the contrasting nature of the opening Sonata Allegro movement of a classical symphony and the following Adagio or Andante.  “Epitaph” which then contrasts effectively with the second track, successfully concludes the first side of the LP.

The second side seems to start afresh, with the soft and sensuous “Moonchild” which, to a musically uneducated fifteen year old (such as I was when I bought the album) sounded like undisciplined musical “noodling” to fill in some time on the second side.  When I recorded it on tape or cassette, I would leave this instrumental section out.  Today, I can listen to this “jam” section and now relate why there was a reference to “Surrey With The Fringe on Top” (that this was jazz influenced if not directly inspired by Miles Davis and John Coltrane) as well as enjoy this music as a listening experience.  Would the album had been better off with a strong composition replacing this jam section? — I still think so today, though not as strongly as I did when a freshman in high school.  That said, all is forgiven with the return of the original melody and then the beginning of the classic title song that ends the album as effectively as a final movement of a symphonic work. Taken together, “21st Century Schizoid Man” and the closing “In the Court of the Crimson King” even without anything in between, made this album a masterpiece — with the other material being subordinate to the first and final track much like the inner movements in a classical era (Haydn, Mozart, early Beethoven) symphony.  Despite its influence on other later bands and their music, and the evolution of rock  over the years, the album still sounds fresh and original, and much like long-lasting love,  remains wonderful, relevant and something to be particularly thankful for.

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Arzarchel: Arzarchel

Arzarchel was an alternate name for Uriel, before Uriel became Egg, a name change brought about be record executives discomfort with the phonetic quality of the name of Uriel, and to hide the identity of Uriel/Egg which had now signed with Decca but had the opportunity to record for the much smaller Zackariya Enterprises.  The album, recorded in June 1969 and released sometime later in 1969, not only renamed the band, but the band members: Simon Sasparella, Njerogi Gategaka, Basil Dowling and Sam Lee-Uff were the unusual names credited in place of the actual artists — guitarist and vocalist Steve Hillage, bassist and vocalist Mont Campbell,  drummer Clive Brooks, and keyboardist Dave Stewart.  Hillage, only 17, had left Uriel for college, but was up for the one-day recording session that may have started as a bit of a lark, bit ended up as a quality album.

Though mostly psychedelic, there are elements of heavy metal and progressive rock that intertwine with the psychedelia to make this album a mix of the past, present and future.  Dave Stewart was familiar with The Nice and this is evident in various aspects of the album as well as some apparent familiarity with Pink Floyd.  The album starts off strong with the “Garden Of Earthly Delights”, followed by “Azathoth” and then the excellent instrumental, “Queen St.Gang.”  “Leg” is blues-based heavy metal tracks somewhat anticipating the sound of Black Sabbath despite the vast differences in Hillage’s vocal delivery and Ozzy Osbourne’s and the general musical approach, and raised to a level well above the ordinary with Hillage’s guitar work.

Side two has two long songs, “Clean Innocent Fun”, another blues-based number that provides an appropriate platform for organ and guitar, and “Metempsychosis” with its space rock ambiance.  Now on CD, this is more than just an album for Steve Hillage and Dave Stewart fans, but anyone wishing to experience psychedelic rock at its apex.

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Frank Zappa: Hot Rats

Recorded in July and August of 1969 and released on October 10, 1969, Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats is an amazing mix of classical, jazz and rock elements.  Only reaching #173 on the US album charts (compare this to #30 for We’re Only In This for the Money), the album did much better in the UK climbing to the #9 spot and apparently influencing musicians in both the UK and Europe.  Notable is the use of overdubs of sped up instruments — Zappa plays some bass lines, for example, which then are mixed in at double speed.  The same is true of for some of Ian Underwood’s wind passages. When I first heard “Peaches and Regalia” I thought it included a synthesizer, but no — this is Underwood on sax at double speed.

I first heard the Hot Rats album around 1970 or 1971, seeing it at my local public lending library, checking it out and then recording it to reel to reel to play repeatedly.  I had heard quite a sampling of Zappa and his Mothers of Invention albums at my cousin’s apartment in the summer of 1969, and so expected much of the same, but was blown away by the general consistency and quality of the album, an album exhibiting what I considered to be greater control and seriousness. To this day, this is my favorite Zappa album.  I never get tired of the first track “Peaches and Regalia”.  This was also my first introduction to Jean Luc Ponty who plays on the very last track, “This Must Be a Camel.”

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The Kinks: Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

On October 16, the Kinks, not deterred by the lack of commercial success of their critically acclaimed The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, release another impressive concept album, “Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire.)” Long time and original Kinks bassist Peter Quaife, who had left to start Mapleoak, was replaced by John Dalton, who had filled in previously for Quaife after Quaife’s auto accident in June 1966.

The first track, “Victoria” provides an narrative context for the album.  Though the strength of the album is more in the lyrics than the music, Ray Davies certainly is adept at crafting tunes that work with those lyrics.  The music in Victoria provides a dramatic opening, with the straightforward dominant and tonic based chorus and the melodic handling of “Victoria” — rising, falling, rising, falling, rising falling, rising falling.  The lyrics provides the social setting and establishes the time effectively — at the beginning of the 20th century, after the Victorian era.

It’s quite impressive how the narrative is put together from each individual track and how the nature of each track builds up that narrative.  After providing context for the social environment, the second song drills down to the nature of that social, class-based, order at the personal level: “Yes, Sir, No, Sir.”  The third song, “Some Mother’s Song” switches to the bleakness of World War I, where Arthur loses his brother.  This followed by “Driving”, an optimistic song capturing the magic of the family outing. The album continues with songs like “Brainwashed” which comments on the oppression of the working class and their acceptance of their place, “Australia” which sounds like a promotional jingle (“Australia, the chance of a lifetime; Australia, you get what you work for”), the classic Ray Davies’ bleak ballad, “Shangri-la”, and “Mr. Churchill” which takes us into World War II.  The sharp irony of “She’s Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina” takes us into the post WWII era of consumption. “Sweet and Innocence” covers the reflective nostalgia of older age. The torch is handed to the younger generation in “Nothing to Say” which mirrors the thoughts of both Arthur and his son. The album ends with “Arthur”, an epilogue summarizing Arthur’s life.

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The Carpenters: Offering

Richard and Karen Carpenter release their first album, Offering on October 9, 1969.  The first and last tracks are the most impressive, showcasing their a capella capabilities via overdubs and Richard Carpenters solid compositional techniques.  The album also includes a fine arrangement and rendition of “Ticket To Ride” with solid vocals and interpretation from Karen Carpenter.  Being born in Downey, California, I had more affection for The Carpenters than the typical prog rock fan, but that aside, one also has to acknowledge that Karen was one of the best pop vocalists of her era.

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Moondog: Moondog

Moondog deserves a special place in musical history for both the quality of his music and as the progenitor of the minimalist movement.  His compositions transcended any single genre, bringing together classical, jazz, world/folk, pop and animated soundtrack elements into his music.  Philip Glass has written that both he and Steve Reich took Moondog’s music “very seriously and understood and appreciated it much more than what we were exposed to at Juilliard”.

Moondog released a number of 78s, than 45s and EPs of his music in the 1950s followed by several LPs including three on the Prestige label and a set of songs for children for Capitol records featuring then Broadway My Fair Lady star, Julie Andrews. Over a decade transpired before his next album, simply titled “Moondog” and produced by Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears producer James William Guercio, was released in 1969.

The combination of fine musicians and quality compositions results in music that really is more relevant, dynamic, alive, exciting and much more part of its time than anything written by the famous “academic” classical composers of the fifties and sixties. There is a variety of styles — but all of it quite distinct from other music of 1969 or earlier — some of the compositions use imitative counterpoint, some have traces of romantic, impressionism, renaissance and baroque styles and much of the compositions use what we would later identify as minimalist-repetition — one can hear the DNA that would soon be found in much of Philip Glass’s works and some of John Adams’s material.   Clearly, this music deserves much more study and listening than it gets today — for it is true mid-twentieth century music representing the vibrancy of the late 1940s up through 1969!

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Fifty Year Friday: September 1969

September 20, 2019

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On September 20, John Lennon met with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the Beatles’ business manager to inform them of his intent to leave: “I want a divorce! Like the one I got from [first wife] Cynthia.”

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September 1969 was also an eventful month for baseball.  The Mets initiated a serious winning streak while the Chicago Cubs was losing games and overtook the Cubbies, even getting a 4-3 victory against Card’s pitcher Steve Carlson record-breaking 19 strike-outs, nine-inning pitching. On September 22nd, Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants became the first major league baseball player since Babe Ruth to get his 600th home run; this was in the same game against the Padres that his teammate Bobby Bonds struck out for the 178th time, breaking  an 1963 record previously held by Dave Nicholson of the Chicago White Sox.

On September 26, ABC debuted a seemingly inconsequential situation comedy about six kids, three girls and three boys, merged as a part of a marriage of two divorcees, with a dog and maid thrown for good measure. At fourteen, I avoided watching the show out of principle, but this series was a favorite of the youngest girl next of our closest neighbors, geographically and personally, a family of three older boys, all good friends to me, and three younger girls.

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But anything else that happened on September 26, or in the month of September 1969, seems culturally inconsequential to the release of the Beatles final effort before they went their own ways, their last recorded studio album, Abbey Road.  I borrowed this masterwork from one of the three boys next door in the spring of 1970 and recorded it on to my own relatively good quality reel-to-reel tape recorder along with Chicago’s second album, the two of which I listened to over and over and over while reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series.  Though more of a collection of solo Beatles songs than some of the earlier albums, the assembly and production, along with the high musical quality, made this my favorite Beatles album.

For many years, I was not particularly fond of the first track, John Lennon’s “Come Together”, seemingly a musical throwback to an earlier time.  Harmonically, this was a standard rock-and-roll chord progression, with psychedelic, wildly colorful, but also mostly incomprehensible, lyrics. Not known to me at the time was that it was written as a campaign song for Timothy O’Leary in his averted attempt to run against Ronald Reagan for Governor of California — the campaign terminated by O’Leary being arrested for possession of weed.  Also not known to me at the time, was the similarity of the song to Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.”  These facts though, probably wouldn’t have made much difference to my quickly getting tired of hearing this played every morning on the bus trip to and back from school, five days a week, from the third Monday in October 1969 to the last Friday before Christmas vacation in late December.

During this same three-month window, George Harrison’s “Something”, the second track sequentially on Abbey Road, was also played on that same bus, courtesy of the local station that our bus driver was apparently captivated with or captive to.  Due to the poor audio quality and the noise on the bus, I didn’t get to fully appreciate the nuances of either of these two songs, and so also became slightly tired of “Something” sometime by late November.  However, its important to note, that compared to the other fodder on AM radio, these two tracks were gems.  It’s hard to imagine how I survived, but during these three months, as music was shifting from the diversity of the late sixties to a more homogeneous, more similarly produced approach to singles, there were numerous musically questionable songs being played on that bus radio including Oliver’s “Jean”, the Cuff Links’ “Tracy”, Bob Dylan’s  tortuous, “Lay Lady Lay”, R.B. Greaves “Take A Letter Maria”, Mel and Tim’s “Back Field in Motion”, and worse of all, The Archies’ unimaginably simplistic and simplistically unimaginable “Sugar Sugar”, one of the most blatant and annoying bubble-gum pop songs of the era. Compared to any of these and some of the other tunes being pushed at the time, “Something” was a work of art, and “Come Together”, even for the seventy-eighth time, was a welcome relief.

But back to Abbey Road — by the time I had transferred my friend’s copy of Abbey Road to tape and started playing it over and over,  I viewed “Come Together” and “Something”, (tunes I had already been overexposed to), as a pair of preludes to an extraordinarily, exceedingly, and unexpectedly high-quality, melodically-rich album. I could read over the sound of “Come Together” and even “Something”, but when I got to the rest of the album, I would often stop reading to listen for a while, before getting back to Tolkien’s more narrative story-telling.

Now certainly as my level of musicianship has increased I have come to better appreciate “Something.”  That said, even today, it is the rest of this album, starting with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” that really resonates with me.  In the previous two tracks, we have McCartney’s bass work, which is particularly impressive on “Something.”  With this third track, we have his first composition on the album, a delightful upbeat, perfectly crafted (and performed) narrative pop tune with facile, witty lyrics nicely supporting the song.   Lennon dismissed the work as more of McCartney’s “granny” music, but the work, like Ringo’s “Octopus’s Garden” provides the necessary lightness and contrast needed to hold together side one of Abbey Road.  “Oh, Darling” which follows, is a seriously heartfelt, blues-based ballad and  benefits from being preceded and followed by the two lighter tracks.

Whereas Ringo’s earlier composition that appeared on the White Album, “Don’t Pass Me By” was one of the simplest realization of a straightforward blues progression, his second composition, “Octopus’s Garden” is more sophisticated, possibly aided with some direction from George Harrison.   Not only does this work well with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” to bookend McCartney’s “Oh! Darling” , but it provides the contrast for the thickness and darkness of Lennon’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” which starts off as plaintive blues-rock before diving into the depths of progressive heavy metal.  It ends suddenly, providing an unambiguous and unbreachable separation between side one and side two.

Side two opens up with Harrison’s masterpiece, “Here Come’s the Sun”, by itself enough to justify having a copy of the Abbey Road album.   This is followed by Lennon’s reworking (reversal and extension) of sequence of chord progressions of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (first movement) as the core of “Because”, providing a level of reflection and sophistication that nicely sets up the unrivaled rock medley that makes the Abbey Road album an unforgettable masterpiece.  One could have taken the numbers in this medley and extended their length, falling into the trap we find on so many rock albums, where tunes are allowed to roam unchecked trespassing their natural boundaries — but by keeping each song to its minimum duration, George Martin and the Beatles maximized the musical impact to make this sixteen-minute medley the shortest sixteen minutes in the history of rock music.  The album ends with “Her Majesty” which was originally meant as part of the medley after “Mean Mr. Mustard”, but disrupted the flow and coherence, and so was intended to be left off the album altogether.  Acting under instruction not to throw anything away, one of the engineers added “Her Majesty” to the end of the master tape, after a generous length of silence.  The Beatles, when listening to the playback lacquer that also included this “added” track, liked the effect and the track ended up included as a final “hidden” track on the album, not listed originally on the LP album cover.   Growing up, I often debated with myself whether the album should have ended, predictably, with “The End”, but today, I have little doubt of the appropriateness of this unrelated coda that adds just one additional element of artistry to this overall timeless, seemingly flawless album.

Though Abbey Road was the best album from September 1969, there are others worth noting.

Laura Nyro’s dramatically intense “New York Tendaberry” was released on September 24, 1969.  Though I never caught Laura Nyro live,  this album provides me some solace as the immediacy comes about as close as a studio album can get to a real live performance.  With one strong track after another, all stylistically and compositionally individual, this is one of the best albums of September 1969.

The Band released their second studio album, self-titled “The Band”, on Sept 22, 1969. Generally country rock, music is accessible and generally good with music mainly written by guitarist Robbie Roberson, who also engineered the album.  For the most part, the lyrics are narrative and provide an historical aspect.  Particularly notable is “The Unfaithful Servant”,  with its art-song qualities.

Fleetwood Mac released their third album, Then Play On on September 19, 1969, the last Fleetwood Mac studio album with Peter Green.  The band takes advantage of the capabilities of studio recording technology for the first time, producing a strong, polished album incorporating blues, blues-based rock,  and contemporary rock numbers including Peter Green’s reflective, leisurely-paced and melancholic “Closing My Eyes”, the understated, simple and nostalgically effective, Pink-Floyd-like “When You Say”, and Peter Green’s “Rattlesnake Shake” which lyrically harkens back to those early blues records that cover taboo topics.  Notable is Peter Green’s guitar work throughout and the overall musical variety provided by contributions from all four band members.  The UK initial release was a relatively lengthy album, and the US version dropped two tracks.  The Rhino Deluxe CD edition includes not only the two omitted tracks, but Peter Green’s 1970 masterpiece, “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” — which combines elements of psychedelic rock and early progressive rock.

The Guess Who release their fifth studio album, “Canned Wheat” sometime in September 1969. This is their strongest album to date including two radio hits, “Undun” and “Laughing”  and an early, and perhaps superior version, of “No Time” with a ear-awakening microtonal introduction.

Man releases the wittily titled 2 ozs of Plastic with a Hole in the Middle.  The album takes on a distinctly progressive tone with an incredibly strong opening instrumental track, “Prelude/The Storm”, solid evidence at how effective could the band could be at crafting and shaping larger musical statements.   Though the remaining album does not stay at this lofty level (the next track is more standard blues-rock and elements of blues and psychedelic rock dominant side two), it has its moments.

While Fleetwood Mac was able to get away with a suggestive album title and Peter Green’s more overt “Rattlesnake Shake”, an unambiguous song about male self-pleasuring, Man had some corporate censorship imposed.  Their label, perhaps not too unexpectedly for 1969, found some fault with the title of the second track on the first side, “Shit on the World”, forcing the band to rename it to the more innocuous “It Is As It Must Be.”  The title of “Spunk Rock” was also targeted, but due to miscommunication at the record executive level, it was inexplicably changed to the even less inoffensive “Spunk Box.” Re-releases of the album have kept the altered titles of “Spunk Box” and “It Is As it Must Be” thus inadvertently delivering a just and lasting subtle irony.

Al Stewart was able to dodge censorship completely on Love Chronicles with one of the first uses of the present participle form of the f word on a record released by a major label (CBS Producer Clive Davis learned of its inclusion after the release or it would have been not allowed.) Released in September 1969, the album is basically a song-cycle covering male/female relationships, some of which are clearly autobiographical including the eighteen minute title track.  The musicianship is outstanding with the 1969 line-up of Fairport Convention (minus vocalist Sandy Denny) and Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin on the title track, “Love Chronicles.”

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The Nice released their third album, simply titled “Nice”, sometime in September 1969, with the album peaking to third position on the UK album charts.  The liner notes are provided, in handwritten form, by Keith Emerson. The album’s music is filled with classical and jazz references and includes Pepper Adams on baritone sax and Joe Newman on trumpet on the last track of side one, “For Example.” Emerson writes about this session in his autobiography expressing his elation at getting Pepper Adams (who was a musician on what Emerson notes was his favorite album of all time, Thelonious Monk at Town Hall.)  Side two of The Nice was recorded at the Fillmore East on April 9 and 10 of 1969 and these two particularly compelling tracks continue the trend of incorporating jazz and classical components.  The first live track,  “Rondo” is based on Brubeck’s “Rondo Alla Turk” and includes Bach references and a reference to Dukas’ “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The second live track is a extended and transformed rendition of Dylan’s blues number “She Belongs to me”, and includes references to Elmer Bernstein’s theme from the Magnificent Seven, Aaron Copland’s Hoedown, and more J.S. Bach.  All the diversity and wide ranging quotations are managed coherently, producing a substantial musical experience.

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Fifty Year Friday: Woodstock and August 1969

August 16, 2019

Wide-angle overall of huge crowd facingWoodstock: Aug 16-18

The history of people gathering together to hear others play music is almost as old as people gathering together to play music — both going back to prehistoric times.

And there were many older people in 1969, those of the “Great” generation and those of the so-called “Silent” generation, that would have identified “Woodstock” as just another prehistoric-type gathering to listen to primitive music.

Woodstock wasn’t the first multi-day music festival.   The Greeks had multi-day festivals where music played an important role.  In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there were music festival that included a competitive element as portrayed in Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Wagner himself started the famous Bayreuth Festival in 1876, and though the first year was a financial disaster, it was a significant historical achievement with Russian attendee, composer Peter Tchaikovsky, writing “Something has taken place at Bayreuth which our grandchildren and their children will still remember.”

And so we can say the same about Woodstock.

There were many earlier multi-day rock events including the three-day Trips Festival in 1966, the two-day Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival in June 1967, the three-day Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18 in 1967, the Northern California Folk Rock Festival in May 1968, the two-day Newport Pop Festival in early August 1968, which had over 100,000 paid attendees, the two-day Isle of Wight Festival on August 31 and September 1, 1968, the two-day San Francisco Pop Festival on October 26 and 27, the two-day Los Angeles Pop Festival on December 22 and 23, the three-day Miami Pop Festival on December 28-30, several large, multi-day festivals in the first seven months of 1969 including the July 25-27 Seattle Pop Festival, and the three-day, attended by over 100,000, Atlantic City Pop Festival on August 1-3.

But Woodstock was one of a kind.  It was the peak of such gatherings — both a musical and social event the likes of which had never occurred before and has yet to occur again.

It was further celebrated and immortalized by the Warner Brothers movie, Woodstock, which came out in March 1970 — a important documentary that other studios had no interest in funding, and that, with its box office success, saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy.

I had not even heard of Woodstock when my father, one evening in April 1970, while my sister and mom were attending some a Job Daughters or Eastern Star related meeting, took me to see a movie about music he personally had no interest in or no particular affection for. At fourteen, I was just along for the ride, so to speak, and would have accompanied my dad to any movie he chose.  Fortunately he chose Woodstock.

And what I saw were the myriad and complex vestiges of sixties mixing with, and more significantly, fueling the new music and culture of the upcoming 1970s — I was watching a document foreshadowing the world I would soon more fully engage and participate in.  Outside of sometimes reminding me of the importance of being considerate of others and sensitive to other people feelings, taking me to movies was the closest my dad ever came to explaining the facts of life or teaching me about what life would be like as an older teenager or young adult.  Woodstock, even in just its movie reincarnation, provided exposure to curse words, skinning dipping, drugs, and most of all some really timeless music.

Today there are various DVDs and on-demand streaming sources of video and audio that cover the music played at Woodstock and capture interviews of musicians and attendees.   I think its appropriate to celebrate this anniversary by watching the original movie or the extended version — or just listening to some of the audio from this landmark event.  Appreciate any comments on this topic!

Albums for the rest of August 1969

For the most part, by August of  1969, the sixties were wrapping up and the seventies were off to the races.

There were a number of musicians and groups that were symbols of the sixties that now had to make the transition to the seventies or fold trying.  Those that more-or-less folded, including Donovan, as mentioned in last week’s post, and groups like the Association, who released their fifth album in August 1969, the first of two Association albums that didn’t have a charting single, would be long remembered for their contributions in the sixties, but not recognized as a part of the seventies.

While other groups were declining, wrapping up, or dissolving, there were many new groups — with three genres becoming more and more prevalent: hard rock groups, which would evolve mainly into metal, progressive rock, and hard rock blues bands; the folk and country rock groups, which would often, in the case of some folk rock bands, get more progressive and complex, or with some country rock bands, develop a harder edge to their music or become more acoustic or folk-oriented; the blues rock bands, which depending on their musical sophistication usually evolved into metal, hard rock, jazz-rock, or more prog rock bands.  On top of this the Motown sound of the sixties was generally replaced with funk, soulful rock with the heart and soul of the Tamla/Motown set of record labels (including Tamla, Motown, Miracle/Gordy, VIP, Soul) shifting from Detroit to Los Angeles.

The shift from the sixties to the seventies was marked by the formation of super groups – — top musicians from different bands getting together as was the case earlier with Crosby, Stills, and Nash which released their album in May of 1969, and Blind Faith and The Hollies, both of which released their albums in August of 1969.

Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood formed Blind Faith with Ginger Baker and Ric Grech. The Blind Faith album, with its controversial original cover, which Eric Clapton fought for by stipulating their would be no album without that cover of the topless prepubescent strawberry blonde suggestively holding a Concord-like aircraft , and which cover was predictably replaced when initially released in the U.S. and Canada, is foundationally a blues rock album, with some particularly engaging writing by Steve Winwood and overall quality playing from Clapton, Winwood, Gretch and Baker.  Half of the album, side two, is an extended jam number which particularly showcases Eric Clapton.

Steve Marriot of the Small Faces and Peter Frampton of the Herd formed the Hollies.  Their first album, As Safe As Yesterday Is, released in early August of 1969, is a mixture of blues rock, jam rock, and some good solid songs. particularly the title song, “As Safe As Yesterday Is”, by Peter Frampton.  This style of British rock-blues looked forward to the blues and guitar oriented rock of the early seventies and contained few vestiges of the original British Invasion sound.

Ten Years After, who also played at Woodstock, was an English blues rock band  releasing their third studio album, Ssssh in August of 1969.  However by this third album Alvin Lee’s impressive guitar style had more of a seventies’ sound and his writing style likewise as was the the general hard-rock rhythmic drive of drummer Ric Lee and bassist Leo Lyons as well as the blues-rock sound of classical trained keyboard player Chick Churchill.  Ssssh, outsold the previous two albums and got as high as the twentieth position on the US Billboard Album Charts.

Mick Abrams, the guitarist on the first Jethro Tull album, leaving apparently from differences with Ian Anderson on the musical direction of Jethro Tull, had formed the band British Blues Band Blodwyn Pig.  Incorporating the reed work of Jack Lancaster and including elements of jazz-rock as exemplified by the track, ““The Modern Alchemist”,  the album reached number 9 on the UK charts. Again we have a solid, British Blues album, very much forging the way into the start of the seventies.

David Brown Plays With Santana At Woodstock

In America, starting in 1966, Carlos Santana led a Bay-Area-based live-concert jam band, Santana. Santana’s first album, recorded in May 1969 and released at the end of August, 1969, incorporated some actual songs in order to be commercially friendly — but as to be expected from this type of jam band, the album is mostly instrumental.  One of songs on the album, “Evil Ways”, caught on in a big way reaching #9 on the charts sometime in March 1970. With the combination of the heavy airplay of “Evil Way” and their appearance at Woodstock and in the film, their first album eventually climbed up to number 4 on the US Billboard Album Charts.  While “Evil Ways” received incessant airplay on AM, FM radio stations played other cuts of the Santana album.

Michigan, which had provided the MC5 and The Stooges, provided yet another hard-edged, blues-based rock band with Grand Funk Railroad. Though the level of musicianship was not at the level of English groups like Blind Faith, The Hollies, Ten Years After, or Blodwyn Pig it was clearly an improvement over MC5.  The first album, On Time, released in August of 1969, was also much better received by rock critics.   Grand Funk was a natural seventies arena rock band, so much so that Rolling Stone writer David Fricke later declared “You cannot talk about rock in the 1970s without talking about Grand Funk Railroad!”  And though an intelligent musically-oriented discussion of seventies rock music certainly wouldn’t suffer from an omission of Grand Funk (as they were more commonly called by fans), they were one of the few early seventies hard rock bands that managed to successfully steer away from what some considered the contaminating influence of progressive rock — staying mostly true to the vision of a generic, relentlessly devoid of any traces of self-awareness, hard rock.

Stevie Wonder, did not play at Woodstock, but continued to mature as a musician and composer, releasing My Cherie Amour on August 29, 1969. Wonder would become one of the most important voices of the 1970s, but for the most part My Cherie Amour is still a sixties album. The biggest hit was the title track, “My Cherie Amour”, a tune originally written by Stevie for his girlfriend as “Oh, My Marsha” when he was a student at the Michigan School for the Blind and then recorded in 1967.  Reaching #4 on the U.S. Billboard Singles chart, the song is relatively simple, instantly accessible and charmingly a product of the sixties.  “Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday”, also recorded back in 1967, reached number #7 in the US and #2 in the UK.

Love also was making the transition from the sixties to the seventies. To start with, Arthur Lee, the primary creative force behind Forever Changes, dismissed all the previous members of Love after the departure talented songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Brian MacLean had left.  The new album, Four Sails, released in either August or September was a disappointment to fans expecting an extension of the melodically-rich, proto-prog sound of Forever Changes.  Four Sail starts off promising enough, with the first track “August”, propelling forward with impressive contrapuntal interplay between the two guitars and the bass.  The next track though, pulls the listener back into the sixties as does “I’m With You” with its similarities to the quintessentially sixties “Feeling Groovy” and “Robert Montgomery” with its similarities to “Eleanor Rigby.” Overall, the album is supported by some strong, seventies-style guitar work, but it does not match the quality of the earlier Forever Changes album, and it garnered even less commercial and critical attention.

Another album bypassed by most consumers and critics alike, selling less than a total of 20,000 copies in 1969 and 1970, was Boz Scaggs solo album, simply titled “Boz Scaggs”, recorded after his departure from the Steve Miller Band and released in August 1969. This is mostly a country music album, but it smoothly incorporates elements of blues, folk, soul and gospel. One could make the case that this album is the most seventies album of all the late sixties albums as it effectively incorporates horns, and background singers into a polished presentation that is as much about style and appearance as substance.  Fortunately, there is also real substance to the songs. Scaggs own compositions are generally based on traditional country laments (unrequited love, being taken for granted, unappreciated, leaving because unappreciated, and abandonment.)  The covers Scaggs chooses are wisely selected and fill out the full county/blues spectrum with “Look What I Got” (I found someone else, so there — but it could/should have been you.”) and and “Waiting for a Train” and “Loan Me A Dime” covering down and out territory.  The album ends with a final country song, Scaggs and keyboardist Barry Becket’s “Sweet Release” that balances desolation with the promise of solace.  This strong and powerful ballad is reminiscent of Procol Harum and anticipates the country-rock sound of Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connections.  Overall Scaggs gives us one of the first seventies-style Americana albums, simple, effective, and liberated from the influence of the musical influences of the British Invasion. Once Boz made it big, the album was reissued and belatedly charted in 1976.

August was a busy month for releases, and with albums like Miles  Davis’s In a Silent Way, Nick Drake’s “Five Leave’s Left”, Yes’s first album, Yes, Jethro Tull’s “Stand Up”, Santana’s first album, Santana, and Can’s “Monster Movie”,  now in the hands of many listeners by the end of August, 1969, it seems appropriate to note that this was the beginning of the seventies, calendar mechanics and formalities ignored — and it you were to bring such silly technicalities up, my reply would certainly be typical seventies jargon — “screw that!”

 

 

 

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1969, Blues, Blues Rock, Country Folk Rock, Country Music, Country Rock, Fifty Year Friday, FOlk, Folk Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Jazz Rock, Rhythm & Blues, Rock, Soul

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Fifty Year Friday: Sharon Tate, Donovan and Harry Nilsson

August 9, 2019

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Fifty years ago, the world lost actress and model, Sharon Tate, and three of her friends on Aug 9, 1969.  This event put fear into celebrities and residents of Santa Monica Mountains/Beverly Hills area of West Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks.  As a 14 year kid, living forty miles away in Orange County, California, listening to the TV news on Saturday night, while my parents were away, it even sent a cold wave of fear into the deep recesses of my own inner being.  On August 11,  the LaBianca homicides were announced by the LAPD.  On August 12, the LAPD indicated the two sets of murders were not connected, making this even scarier. Eventually the same brutal murderers of both these tragic events were identified, caught, and tried with full national coverage.

It was the beginning of the ending of the innocence associated with the flower power movement.  Just as the establishment was being tarnished by the Vietnam war, The psychedelic era was now tarnished.  Just as Nixon was initiating the withdrawal of Americans from Vietnam, the peak of the psychedelic era of rock music had been achieved and was now on a decline.  There is no better representation of this start of this end of this sixties musical era than the once-Dylan-copycat-turned-melodic-and-modal-modern-musical master of Flower Power music, the author of “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow.”

Donovan: Barabajagal

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I was a big Donovan fan, amazed by his skill and range of variety as exhibited in albums like Hurdy Gurdy Man and in songs like “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” and the pacifist-themed “Epistle To Dippy.” Donovan was a once-in-a-generation genius.

So, saving up my allowance, no longer relying on listening to whatever albums my sister bought, I purchased Barabajagal FOR $3.99 in late 1969 when first seeing it in the record bins in K-mart.

And I was disappointed.

Much of the music is repetitive using basic harmonies and major-scale melodies with rather silly lyrics. “Atlantis” seems to last forever, with its spoken narrative and endless chorus at the end — a shadow of what the Beatles did with “Hey Jude.”

Yet, the album was not hopeless: many top musicians appear here and there including Jeff Beck, Lesley Duncan, Madeleine Bell, Aynsley Dunbar, and one of my favorite session rock pianists, Nicky Hopkins. Moreover, it the perfect album for children particularly with tunes like “I Love My Shirt” and “Happiness Runs” and, for older listeners, has one strong, wistfully beautiful ballad, “Where She Is.”  Also worth noting is the inclusion of what can best be termed as an example of a mimicry of American post-ragtime, roaring twenties dance hall and British music hall popular tunes exemplified by songs like Geogg Stephen’s “Winchester Cathedral” and Paul McCartney’s “Honey Pie” — the last track on the album, “Pamela Jo”

One of the strongest lights of the sixties was beginning to lose it’s lustre: however, musical legends like Donovan Leitch always remain celebrated.  The remastered CD version of Barabajagal includes seven finished songs not included originally on the LP and eight quality demo tracks, several of which are far superior to the music that ended up on August 11, 1969 release of Barabajagal, so much so, that one should find of the remastered edition of Barabajagal quite satisfactory.  (Available at Amazon here.)   This is really Donovan’s last statement of the sixties as his next album, Open Road, recorded in early 1970, is without producer Mickie Most, and is a more band-oriented album than any of Donovan’s previous albums.

donovan

Personnel [from Wikipedia]

London

Los Angeles

The following musicians played on “I Love My Shirt”, “To Susan on the West Coast Waiting”, “Atlantis” and “Pamela Jo”:

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Harry Nilsson: Harry

An album also released in August of 1969, that includes several neo-ragtime/dance hall style of music tracks is Harry Nilsson, accessible and charming “Harry.” This is not rock in any sense, but joyous and often clever pop.  Composer Bill Martin is mostly responsible for the neo-dance hall tunes, and Nilsson himself contributes several quality compositions. A couple of nicely done covers of very familiar music is included (“Mother Nature’s Son”, “Mr. Bojangles”) as well as Randy Newman’s “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear.”

No trace of psychedelia, flower power or acid rock here.  Perhaps another early sign that the sixties are coming to a close?

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

All tracks composed by Harry Nilsson, except where noted. All tracks arranged and conducted by George Tipton (* = produced by Rick Jarrard)

“The Puppy Song” – 2:43
“Nobody Cares About the Railroads Anymore” – 2:47
“Open Your Window” – 2:08 *
“Mother Nature’s Son” (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 2:42
“Fairfax Rag” (Bill Martin) – 2:14
“City Life” (Bill Martin) – 2:31
“Mournin’ Glory Story” – 2:13 *
“Maybe” – 3:10
“Marchin’ Down Broadway” – 1:05 *
“I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” – 2:44
“Rainmaker” (Nilsson, Bill Martin) – 2:47
“Mr. Bojangles” (Jerry Jeff Walker) – 3:53
“Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” (Randy Newman) – 2:47

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1969, Fifty Year Friday, Pop, Rock

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Fifty Year Friday: Monster Movie, The Stooges, Stand Up

August 2, 2019

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Can: Monster Movie

Launching the genre of progressive rock that is sometimes called Krautrock, German Space Rock, or perhaps most appropriately Kosmische Musik,  Monster Movie was recorded in July 1969 and released one month later in August of 1969.  It’s Kosmische Musik rhythmic drive is present on the very first track which opens up with a high pitch space age electronic lead-in (an effect later more prevalent after the introduction of electronic sequencers), followed by driving drums, and repetitive bass and electric guitar riffs — all elements refined further by later German “cosmic music” bands.  The seemingly anomalous vocalist, is American Malcom Mooney, who lends a ranting, free-spirt to the otherwise organized and precise forward driving sound of the band.

Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and Danzig/Gdańsk-born bassist Holger Czukay studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen.  Drummer Jaki Liebezeit played with European Free Jazz proponent, Manfred Schoof and guitarist Michael Karoli had both classical (violin, cello) and jazz backgrounds. Vocalist and sculptor, Malcom Mooney, became friends with Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay shortly after he moved to Germany and joined the first iteration of the band named “Inner Space.”  It was Mooney who suggested a new name, “The Can”, which was later shortened to just “Can.”  At some point later, an English newspaper article incorrectly suggested that “CAN” stood for “Communism, Anarchism and Nihilism” and this was soon adopted by drummer Liebezeit.

There is certainly a sense of Anarchism and Nihilism in this first album, as well as a communal performance mindset.  There is also some great music, making this one of the classic rock albums of 1969.  The first track, “Father Cannot Yell”, not only has historic importance as early space rock, but exemplifies the cosmic, time-stretching intersection between space rock, free-jazz, and 1950 and 1960’s “experimental/avant/garde” “classical” music . The second track, “Mary, Mary So Contrary”, is pure West Coast psychedelia, sounding more Haight Ashbury than Köln, Germany. The third track breaks into punk territory and flirts with New Wave elements with Mooney as effective as any punk vocalist. The fourth track, “Yoo Doo Right” takes up the entire side two at a little over twenty minutes melding blues-rock with Stockhausen at the Kosmische Rock level with a little extra musical nihilism and proto-punk thrown in for good measure. All in all we have a very different album than the usual recorded fare of the time — music that is influenced by early Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground but also unquestionably provides its own influences for upcoming bands.

Can

 

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The Stooges: The Stooges

Those following this column may have noted my omission of MC5’s first released album, their live album, Kick Out the Jams.  I bought Kick Out the Jams as a used album around 1971 for about 50 cents but never took a liking to it.  I never much listened to another Michigan-based group, The  Stooges.  I have to say in all honesty,  I particularly made an effort to stay clear of them when Robert Hillburn, lead rock music critic for the Los Angeles Times, started to gush and effuse about them. Though there were many things Mr. Hilburn got right about music, he had an egregious blind spot, or deaf ear, when it came to progressive rock. Born in 1939, and enamored with the American Rock and Roll stars of the mid 1950s and seemingly more comfortable with the basics of rock and I-IV-V chord progressions than the more exploratory side of music, he absolutely hated progressive rock, and that was enough for me to discount his reviews from that point on.  When he unabashedly praised Iggy Pop and the Stooges for their primitive approach, while Hilburn was also trashing albums by Jethro Tull and Yes, that was enough for me to stop reading Hilburn’s reviews and lose any interest in ever listening to Iggy Pop or his “Stooges.”

However, this July, when looking over the calendar of albums released in August of 1969, I noticed that August 5, 1969, was the release of the first Stooges album.  I had listened once again to MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams” earlier this year in trying to decide if I would include that album in a February post for Fifty Year Friday, but it just didn’t spark my interest.  The music didn’t impress me and I didn’t even see more than a marginal connection between MC5 and later punk bands, a connection often emphasized by those examining the history of punk rock. For me, the most evident connection was a lack of instrumental skill.

So when I gave the first “The Stooges” album a spin, I expected little of interest.  And though the music didn’t send me into fits of musical pleasure, it had its moments.

The Stooges had basically five songs when Elektra (looking to expand their currently small cache of non-folk rock groups) signed The Stooges — partly based on input from MC5 regarding how loud The Stooges played.   For live performance, the group basically filled in extra time by jamming, but as this wouldn’t work for the album.  Iggy and the  Stooges assured Elektra they had more material, and then quickly, perhaps in a few hours, came up with four more numbers, three of which where included in the album on side two: “Real Cool Time”, “Not Right” and “Little Doll.”

The Stooges first album was generally panned by a wide range of critics.  Interestingly Robert Hilburn, avoided reviewing this first album. Another L.A. Times contributor, John Mendelssohn,  did,  and wrote the following: “Had I not the unpleasant experience of bearing [sic] The MC5’s “Kick Out the James” [sic] several months ago, I could say “The Stooges” was the worst rock album of the year. It’s unquestionably the second worst, featuring as it does several whiny, adolescently repulsive and barely distinguishable street-punk anthems and hypnotically boring 10 minute chant “We Will Fall.” (Sunday L.A. Times, December 7, 1969)

Note Mendelssohn’s prophetically uses “punk” in his review, a term that would soon be applied to marginally talented garage rock bands, and then later used for a specific style of music as performed by groups like the Sex Pistols and The Ramones.  One could make the case that the Stooges are truly a punk rock group, the first, as opposed to just being a loud, erratic, three-chord garage rock band like the MC5.  Not considering the Stooges lead singer’s live performance presence and antics, there are elements in this first album that reflect the ethos of punk rock as exemplified by tracks like “1969” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, a punk rock song title if there every was one.  Add to this that guitar work of Ron Asheton and a couple of actually interesting songs on the album (“Anne” and to a lesser degree “We Will Fall”) and we have something more here than an album that deserved to be widely dismissed by the rock critics of the time.  Supporting this contention is all the praise heaped upon this album in later years including the inclusion of this is the 185th best album of all time on the 2003 Rolling Stones “Greatest 500 Albums of All time.”  I won’t rate this as being one of the top 500 or even top 5000 albums of all time, but I wouldn’t say this is the second worst album of 1969 either.

The Stooges

  • Iggy Pop (credited as “Iggy Stooge”) – vocals, handclaps
  • Dave Alexander – bass guitar, handclaps
  • Ron Asheton – guitar, backing vocals, handclaps
  • Scott Asheton – drums, handclaps

Additional personnel

  • John Cale – piano, sleigh bell on “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, viola on “We Will Fall”, production

 

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Jethro Tull: Stand Up

Released on 25 July 1969 in  the U.K. and in late September in the U.S., Stand Up is more than just an interesting document of the Jethro Tull transitioning from blues-rock to a folk-rock/hard-rock/progressive rock band, it is one of the finest gems of 1969 rock music.

I am generally not enthusiastic about the blues-rock genre, but this album starts off with one of the most exquisitely rendered blues-rock numbers of all time,  “A New Day Yesterday”. compellingly mixing harmonica, electric bass, electric guitar, percussion, and Ian Anderson’s vocals into fresh, vital, bass-punctuated pre-progressive rock music with a brief yet naturally placed flute solo in the middle — all of this in an under-three-minute track.

“Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square” takes us into early folk-prog territory, simple chords with a colorful arrangement creating interest; this is followed by Anderson’s arrangement of Bach’s Bourrée from the E minor Lute suite, a track that got some air play on the then cutting-edge FM album oriented radio stations that were became more prominent with the early seventies.

There’s really not one weak track on this album.  More importantly, there are some real classics here, like “Look Into The Sun” and “We Used to Know.” Primary credit must be given to the song writing skills and arranging skills of Ian Anderson, but bassist Glen Cornick also contributed to the arrangements, as did, to a lesser extent, guitarist Martin Barre. Arranger, and later on, Jethro Tull keyboardist, David/Dee Palmer, student of Richard Rodney Bennett when student at the Royal Academy of Music, also contributed, and particularly shines in the strings included in “Reasons for Waiting.”

This is one of the must listen albums of 1969.

Jethro Tull

  • Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ, piano, mandolin, balalaika, mouth organ, production
  • Martin Lancelot Barre – electric guitar, additional flute (on tracks 2 and 9)
  • Glenn Cornick – bass guitar (all tracks but 5 and 7)
  • Clive Bunker – drums, percussion

 

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1969, Album review, Blues Rock, Fifty Year Friday, Folk Rock, Progressive Rock, Rock

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Fifty Year Friday: In A Silent Way

July 26, 2019

 

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MILES DAVIS: IN A SILENT WAY

Recorded in one session on Feb 18, 1969 as three performances, “Shhh/Peaceful”, “In A Silent Way”, “It’s About That Time”, then edited by Ted Macero (with apparently minimal input from Miles Davis) into two compositions in ABA form, one for each side, In A Silent Way, was released on July 30, 1969, peaking at number 134 on Billboard’s Top LPs chart.  The music is available today in both the edited form, which for a long time was all that listeners were familiar with, and in its original form.

What is striking about either the edited or original form, is the original style of both the music and the musical approach to structure and form that was deployed.  The album version differs considerably than the original takes.  For “Shhh”/”Peaceful” the original starts off with a whole-tone sort of motif (with traces of the flat-second Dorian mode) on which the entire work unfolds.  There is this amazing guitar work from McLaughlin and a brief but luxuriantly melodic Davis/Shorter passage.  All of this is dropped from the album version, which begins with the initial statement of another theme from the original take (about ninety seconds) followed with the restatement of this theme that occurs during the last four and a half minutes of the original, then followed with earlier material.  Whereas the original is multi-thematic and provides more contrast, the album version is more mono-thematic and ambient in nature.  It is basically in A B A form, resembling the Sonata form found in Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven era music, with the middle section analogous to a development section.

On the second side of the album, Teo Maceo continues to aggressively edit the original music, once again creating an ABA structure by taking the group’s performance of Davis’s simplified version of Zawinul’s “In A Silent Way” for the A section and using Davis and Zawinul’s collaborative “It’s about That Time” as the B section.  The results provides us with an impressionistic A section, and a quasi-bluesy, slightly funky B section, with a perfect repeat (as it is just a copy) of the original A section.

Though a transitional style for Davis, this landmark ambient jazz album would have considerable influence on many styles of music in the next few years ranging from other jazz or jazz-ambient artists to a subset of progressive rock groups, particularly several of the so-called Kraut-rock bands including Can, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul II, to Brian Eno to a number of New Age artists to even several modern “classical music” composers.  It’s tempting to debate the artistic pros and cons and the artistic merit of the original music versus the final edited album, but it was that final edited album that was the sole source of this music for musicians and music lovers during the last five months of 1969, all of the seventies, the eighties and the nineties.   Commercial music is often notable for its externally enforced limitations, but in 1969 in particular, music markedly stood out for its bold exploration outside of established boundaries, with In A Silent Way being one of the best examples of music liberated and unencumbered from the realm of retail-driven mechanical patterns and formulas, purposefully, yet seemingly spontaneously, creating a new and unconfined expanse of musical expression.

Side One

“Shhh”/”Peaceful” (Miles Davis)  18:16

Side Two

“In A Silent Way/It’s About That Time” (Joe Zawinul, Miles Davis)  19:52

Musicians

 

Category:

1969, Album review, Fifty Year Friday, Fusion Jazz, jazz, Jazz Rock, Music, New Age, Progressive Rock

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