Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘1968’

Fifty Year Friday: The Zombies, Odessey and Oracle

The-Zombies-Odessey-Oracle-770In early 1967, battling against the challenges of generating a stream of steady income, and considering splitting up due to lack of continued success and assorted frustrations, the UK pop-group, The Zombies, once heralded as one of the leading musical forces of the British Invasion, reluctantly accepted an offer to play a series of ten concerts in the large Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines. Much to their surprise, they were greeted by two thousand fans at the Metro Manila airport, and found their music played repeatedly on Philippines pop radio, with five of their older songs currently in the top ten.  On the first night, March 3rd, 1967, the Zombies played to a total of 45,000 appreciative fans, with continuing large crowds through March 11th.

Such a reception should have encouraged the band, but as the pay amounted to only a paltry 380 British Pounds split between the band, the result was more that of discouragement.

So when it came time to record an album in June of 1967, thoughts of a break-up were already present with that actually disbandment happening before the album was released on April 19, 1968.  The Zombies had a limited budget and limited time, but they were intent on producing something lasting and of quality.  Fortunately the songs provided by band members Rod Argent and Chris White were exceptional.

One’s first impression is that this album, Odessey and Oracle, (the mispelling, though claimed by Argent to be intentional for many years, was an error on the part of the graphic designer) is heavily indebted to the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds and the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s, though it’s important to note that most of the songs on the album were written before Sgt. Pepper’s was released in May 1967. It’s also worth noting that nine of the twelve songs on Odessey and Oracle were recorded at  EMI‘s Abbey Road Studios using the same engineers that had contributed to Sgt. Pepper’s, the same eight-track technology and the very same Mellotron the Beatles had left behind, but with remarkably less studio time and no additional musicians employed.  Rod Argent: This “was the first time we were recording with more than four tracks, and we were like kids in a candy store, overdubbing Mellotron parts and vocal harmonies.”

The album opens with its strongest track, “Care of Cell 44”, one of Rod Argent masterpieces. This would of been the perfect single and was released as such, but it completely fizzled. With McCartney-like bass, a sprightly piano part, Beach Boys-like harmonies and overdubbed Mellotron, this upbeat song anticipates a style used years later by groups like SuperTramp and Kayak, chamber pop groups like Fugu, and Indie Pop groups like Beulah and Apples in Stereo.

If the music of “Care of Cell 44” is ahead of its time, so are the lyrics, which are also more like the Indie Pop of the 1990’s than anything of 1968:

“Good morning to you, I hope your feeling better, baby,
Thinking of me while you are far away
Counting the days until they set you free again.
Writing this letter, hoping you’re okay;
Sent to the room you used to stay in every Sunday —
The one that is warmed by sunshine everyday.
And we’ll get to know each other for a second time
Then you can tell me about your prison stay.”

The second song, “A Rose for Emily” starts with simple piano accompaniment against a clear unadorned vocal line followed by charming harmonies in the chorus.  The influence of Brian Wilson is clear, but the originality of this song, written by Argent in a single morning, is also clear.

The distinction in musical writing styles between Argent and Chris White is apparent with the next song, “Maybe After He’s Gone” which opens with acoustic guitar, but just as Argent’s lyrics pushed into darker and less traveled roads, the same with White’s songs — this one about the possibly remote prospect that the former love will return after the other guy has moved on.  The sense of sadness and loneliness conveyed effectively by the lyrics is underscored rather than obscured by the irony of relatively upbeat music.

In “Beechwood Park”, the next track,  Chris White takes an opposite approach of combining lyrics that when read might seem like pleasant reminiscing but when set with decidedly gloomy music becomes melancholic with a clear sense that this is a love that has been lost and never to be recovered.  It pairs well with the previous song, both effectively covering the same topic of guy loses girl, and perhaps even being about the same loss.

“Brief Candles” combines the sensitive ballad with the classic sixties psychedelic chorus. This time the verse is melancholic, the chorus uplifting, and the result, like the previous two tracks, is reflective and wistful.

The last track of side one, “Hung Up on a Dream” is another Rod Argent composition with lyrics very reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Day in the Life”, though probably written before Argent heard that song:

“Well, I remember yesterday
Just drifting slowly through a crowded street
With neon darkness shimmering through the haze
A sea of faces rippling in the heat

“And from that nameless changing crowd
A sweet vibration seemed to fill the air
I stood astounded staring hard
At men with flowers resting in their hair

“A sweet confusion filled my mind
Until I woke up only finding everything was just a dream
A dream unusual of its kind
That gave me peace and blew my mind.”

The music is not the standard verse-chorus-verse structure.  The first section is three instances of the verse followed by an instrumental bridge-like passage with the most sparkling chord changes, followed by another vocal section in the original key of G Major which them modulates for the return of the verse, now in F major, followed by an instrumental coda over the chords of the verse.

The second side is not as strong as the first side, but even a track like “I Want Her, She Wants Me”, which Argent has indicated he threw together quickly for the B side of a single, is catchy, well arranged, and well performed.

The two best tracks on side two are Chris White songs, the first of which is the anti-war song, “Butcher’s Tale”, the tale of a disillusioned, frightened British World War One soldier.

Chris White: “I wanted Colin to sing it but they got me to sing because they said ‘Your weak trembley little voice suits the song.’ We used this old American pedal organ that I’d bought in a junk store, and if you listen closely you can hear Rod’s fingernails, because it’s all miked up. We also had some musique concrète, which I actually nicked off a Pierre Boulez record, reversed the tape and sped it up. We ‘adapted’ it. One of the influences on that was ‘1941 New York Mining Disaster’ by the Bee Gees, which I thought was a great way of telling a story — very evocative.”

Surprisingly, this was released as a single, but failed perhaps due to is odd, eerie, though effectively evocative, content.

Also notable is the next Chris White composition on the album, “Friends of Mine”, with its upbeat, overall basic, but catchy music, covering a topic perhaps rarely (if ever) previously covered in recorded pop music:

“When we’re all in a crowd
And you catch her eye
And then you both smile
I feel so good inside
And when I’m with her
She talks about you
The things that you say
The things that you do
…
And when I feel bad
When people disappoint me
That’s when I need you two
To help me believe”

Background chorus included couples that were friends of the band and whose actual names are included in the song.  Ironically, per Rod Argent, despite being immortalized as being loving pairs on the album, none of these couples stayed together.

The last track, “Time of the Season”,  was also written last.  Composed in a single morning by Rod Argent, it is the least interesting song in terms of chord changes, but is notable for its unusually limited use of chorus and the two Argent’s era-appropriate jazz-psychedelia electronic organ solos.  Argent felt that this song had hit-potential but this view wasn’t particularly shared by others. Nonetheless, the song was eventually released as a single and, though the band was now no longer together, in 1969, “Time of the Season” rose to the number 3 spot on Billboard, rose to #1 on the Cash Box Top 100, and peaked at number 1 in Canada.  This was, by far, the Zombies biggest hit, but the Zombies were no more.

The single would have never been released if it wasn’t for Al Kooper (see earlier blog post here) who was now with Columbia in the A&R department (the Artists and Repertoire division, responsible for talent recognition and development.) More importantly, this album, Odessey and Oracle, would probably have never been released either, if it wasn’t for Al Kooper’s insistence.  As it was, Columbia released it on one of their small sub-labels, Date Records, which was dissolved by 1970.

Rod Argent: “In the States, the album was not going to be released until Al Kooper found it. He was the hot new A&R man that Clive Davis had employed, and he went rushing back from England to the US. He went into Clive Davis’ office and said, ‘I’ve listened to hundreds of albums and there’s one album that stands above the rest and I don’t care who owns this album, you’ve got to buy it from them. It doesn’t matter how much it costs.’ And Clive said, ‘Well, we own it, and we passed on it.’ Al said, ‘You can’t pass on it, you must release it.’

“He said OK and then they put out “Butcher’s Tale,” which is still one of my favorite tracks on the album, that Chris wrote. It still gives me chills when I hear it, but it was never a single. Al was aghast that they put that out as a single. Then they put out “Friends of Mine,” and as I remember, “Care of Cell 44.” Nothing happened. And then they put out “Time of the Season.”

Though there are significant differences in Argent’s and White’s writing for both music and lyrics, the album is filled with some of the most bubbly and sparkling pop chord changes ever, and holds together as a unified whole, with only the last track not quite fitting in.  For an album that was almost never released in the States, this is one of the more musical, influential, and important albums of 1968.

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

Side A

#

Title

Writer

Length

1

 “Care of Cell 44“ Rod Argent

3:57

2.

 “A Rose for Emily” Argent

2:19

3.

 “Maybe After He’s Gone” Chris White

2:34

4.

 “Beechwood Park” White

2:44

5.

 “Brief Candles” White

3:30

6.

 “Hung Up on a Dream” Argent

3:02

Side B

#

Title

Writer

Length

7.

 “Changes” White

3:20

8.

 “I Want Her, She Wants Me” Argent

2:53

9.

 “This Will Be Our Year” White

2:08

10.

 “Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914)“ White

2:48

11.

 “Friends of Mine” White

2:18

12.

 “Time of the Season“ Argent

3:34
Total length:

35:18

Personnel

The Zombies

  • Colin Blunstone – lead vocals
  • Rod Argent – keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocals on “I Want Her, She Wants Me”, co-lead vocals on “Brief Candles”
  • Paul Atkinson – guitar, backing vocals on “Changes”
  • Chris White – bass, backing vocals, lead vocals on “Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914)”, co-lead vocals on “Brief Candles”
  • Hugh Grundy – drums, backing vocals on “Changes”

Production[

rearA

Original Liner Notes: 

Shakespeare said: 

“Be not afraid; 
The isle is full of noise 
Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments 
Will hum about mine years; and sometimes voices” 

Really, music is a very personal thing; it’s the product of a person’s experiences. Since no two people have been exactly alike, each writer has something unique to say.  That makes anything which is not just a copy of something else worth listening to. Believing this, and laden with gifts of fruit and nuts from the Orient, we descended upon CBS chieftain Derek, and with smarm and charm extracted, astonished, the finance necessary to compose, arrange and perform, produce and cover an LP ourselves, with no outside help or interference. 

This is the result:

Thanks to Terry Quick, artist flatmate of Chris, for the cover. Thanks to Will Shakespeare, not a flatmate of Chris, for his contribution to the sleeve notes.

ROD ARGENT, 1968
__________________________________________________

A few years ago we all fell under the spell of ‘She’s Not There’ and ‘Tell Her No’. Well, they are back again with the same spells and a few new ones. 

With this album, The Zombies establish themselves alongside the royalty of rock. The songs are so original in thought – a girl soon to come home to you (from prison), the horror of the First World War, with melodies incorporating well-timed diminished chords leaping through warm melodic tapestries. The musicianship level set on ‘She’s Not There’ is not betrayed, and The Zombies have indeed benefited from the time since then. 

While in London recently, I acquired forty British LPs. Once home, I began to listen to all forty. This record stuck out like a rose in a garden of weeds. It is for you now to enjoy this experience as I have, and I know once you have, you will continue to play some cuts from this album every day for a long time. The Zombies who are – very much alive. 

AL KOOPER, 1968


__________________________________________________

Additional notes

 

Advertisement

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Anthony Braxton, 3 Compositions of New Jazz

MI0001912318

Though generally not a fan of free jazz, I do enjoy the music I have purchased and heard from Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Sam Rivers.  I also find John Coltrane’s forays into free jazz particularly appealing, but let’s face it, John Coltrane could have made interesting music just playing rising and falling whole tone scales.

There is also a spectrum of free jazz from semi-structured to complete chaos.  Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch album is the kind of free jazz that I love the most — it has much in common with traditional jazz and it doesn’t sound chaotic or random, but unfolds logically and musically.  I am generally a fan of Sun Ra and have no challenges setting aside time to listen to his explorations into free jazz.

As I music major, I listened to hours of the so-called avant-garde including Boulez, Stockhausen, Crumb, Xenakis, and many others. Truthfully, I like this type of music better than much of what is played today on the top 40 radio stations, but not by a lot.  My interest in second-half twentieth century classical music gravitated towards composers like Oliver Messiaen or the minimalists, like Philip Glass.

However, listening to a wide range of music expands one’s appreciation for music in general and listening to the so-called avant-garde, aleatoric (music based on chance), or free-jazz expands one’s ability to listen fully and comprehensively.  I once spent a little bit of time around John Cage in Europe, attending concerts and talking with him, and I learned much about how to listen to and appreciate music, organized sounds, random sounds, and the wide array of sensory input available to us.   I do enjoy hearing the rain against the house, or the sounds of wind in a forest or the music of the ocean when out on the deck of a ship.  And the beauty of music is not only determined from the labor and skill of the composer, but from the skill of each and every once of us to organize the sounds we perceive into a meaningful experience.

And so, though I prefer Anthony Braxton’s occasional excursions into standard jazz over his completely free jazz recordings, I still respect the talent and the skills he applies to free jazz, starting with his very first album as a leader,  3 Compositions of New Jazz, recorded in March and April 1968.  And I still value the part I personally play in making a coherent, and hopefully, enjoyable or even uplifting experience,  when listening to this or any other work of music.

And there is a lot of talent and skill that has gone into the three tracks on 3 Compositions of New Jazz. The variety (wide arrange of sounds, textures, and instruments employed by the four musicians) and the thoughtful quality of the music, makes this worthy of an initial listening, even if you then set it aside for a decade or more — or never pick it up again.  What works best for me, is the second track on side two, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith’s “The Bell”, which I find attractive for its purity and beauty.  And in general, I particularly like Leroy Jenkins violin and viola playing throughout this album.

Am I impressed by how Braxton and team abandon conventionality and move forward with bold freedom?  Not so.  Braxton was twenty-three when this was recorded, and such youthful musical courage is not unexpected.  What is unexpected is the amount of variety, artfulness, and ability to make such unstructured music work and hold one’s attention.

Do I recommend this?  Not necessarily.  There are plenty of other jazz and even free-jazz albums I find more appealing.  Is this of historic importance?  Perhaps.   It is noteworth for its place in the musical landscape of 1968 and its blend of what is very much a John Cage approach with jazz music, but I suspect the history of free jazz would have been much the same if Delmark had shelved this album and failed to release it until forty years later.

Music is never completely driven by chance, unless it is generated by chance and performed by a computer, and this music, even with the following of the simple diagrams provided to the musicians for the first two tracks, is less about chance and more about musical and spiritual expression without the confinements of a set sequences of chord changes, a verse and chorus or other melodic framework, or recurring rhythmic patterns.  What is of interest here is just as engaging and potentially captivating as sitting outside of Penn Station in New York and watching hundreds of people a minute go on their way to work, listening to the birds sing in the forest, or listening to strangers’ conversations  on a bus, subway, or in a restaurant. It’s certainly better than listening to most radio talk shows, watching most youtube videos, or being bombarded repeatedly by some of the popular music of today or even some of the lower-quality popular music played on AM radios fifty years ago.

MI0002708545

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by Anthony Braxton, except where noted.

# Title Length
1 “(840m)-Realize-44M-44M (Composition 6 E)” 20:03*
2 “N-M488-44M-Z (Composition 6 D)” 12:57*
3 “The Bell” (Leo Smith) 10:31

*These first two tracks are graphically titled. This is an attempt to translate the title.

  • Recorded at Sound Studios, Chicago, IL on March 27 (track 1) and April 10 (tracks 2 & 3), 1968

Personnel

 

 

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, jazz, Music, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Simon & Garfunkel, Bookends; Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr. Assassination; Civil Rights Act of 1968

bookends

Released on April 3, 1968, it wasn’t until summer of 1968 that I first heard this album.  My sister had left it out on the top of my dad’s large mono hi-fidelity set, and alone in the living room, I took the record sleeve out of the outer cover and the vinyl contents out of its record sleeve, put it on the only quality turntable in the house, and one of the better ones on the block, turned on the machine, guided the tonearm to the beginning and while still standing in front of the hi-fi, became totally ensnared by this work of musical art.

The album opens with a solo acoustic guitar prelude intimating that this is not going to be just a collection of songs, but something more  – an organized musical statement. The second track, with Moog synthesizer setting the general ambiance, and thick reverb and choir providing the texture, is dark and grey, much in keeping with the black and white cover, and sets an encompassing atmosphere of bleakness, alienation and separation which carries on even through the last, more upbeat, song of the album.

This is very much Paul Simon’s Sgt. Peppers album — a concept album without a concrete concept, establishing coherence and a unified whole based on the quality of the songs, their arrangements, and, even going further than Sgt. Pepper, on a consistency of style in both the music and lyrics.  There is a deep seriousness in this music far beyond the previous Simon and Garfunkel albums: the music is shadowy and gloomy but rich in textures and images similar to some of the more detailed and complex art-deco black-and-white photography such as one of Edward Striochen’s photos as shown below:

ARTS003635

“America”, “Hazy Shade of Winter”, and “At the Zoo” may be uptempo and full of rhythm and the essence of rock music — listen to Yes’s flashy, kaleidoscopic realization of “America” — but these are inherently dark compositions with all intrusively brighter colors filtered out to expose the true underlying monochrome content.  Should I venture to compare this album general effect to one of Mahler’s works? Perhaps there is merit for such a comparison, but these tracks belong to 1968 not to a time eighty years earlier, and the most appropriate comparisons are to music of 1968.  Like Sgt. Pepper’s, this album could not have been made with the normal limitations placed on studio time for most rock artists.  Thankfully, Simon and Garfunkel had a clause in their contract specifying the label’s obligation to provide the necessary funding for the studio time, and the duo took advantage of this with hours and hours spent on perfecting the final product with multiple takes and significant dollars spent on that studio time as well as money spent on  the incorporation of additional instruments and the musicians playing them.

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by Paul Simon, except “Voices of Old People” by Art Garfunkel.

Side one

No.

Title

Recorded

Length

1.

 “Bookends Theme“ 1968

0:32

2.

 “Save the Life of My Child“ Dec. 14, 1967

2:49

3.

 “America“ Feb. 1, 1968

3:35

4.

 “Overs“ Oct. 16, 1967

2:14

5.

 “Voices of Old People” Feb. 6, 1968

2:07

6.

 “Old Friends“ 1968

2:36

7.

 “Bookends Theme” 1968

1:16

Side two

No.

Title

Recorded

Length

8.

 “Fakin’ It“ June 1967

3:17

9.

 “Punky’s Dilemma“ Oct. 5, 1967

2:12

10.

 “Mrs. Robinson“ Feb. 2, 1968

4:02

11.

 “A Hazy Shade of Winter“ Sept. 7, 1966

2:17

12.

 “At the Zoo“ Jan. 8, 1967

2:23

April 4, 1968, was a day of great tragedy: the assassination of  Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr.  Further tragedy followed with rioting and violence across 125 cities that took the lives of 39 people and injured many, many more. As with so many tragedies, good followed including the passage of the previously stalled Civil Rights Act of 1968 which now made it federal crime to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin” as well as directly addressing an area where millions had previously been treated unfairly by being “the first effective law against discrimination in the sale and rental of housing in the United States of America” making fair housing “the unchallenged law of the land.”  For this reason, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, is also known as the Fair Housing Act.

EHOimages\

Nina Simone dedicates a program of music to Dr. King at Westbury Music Fair, April 7, 1968. This music is later released in 1968 on the album, Nuff Said.  The third track on the album, is “Backlash Blues”, a Civil Rights song first recorded on Nina Simone Sings the Blues with lyrics by renowned poet,  Langston Hughes:

Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash,
Just who do think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages
And send my son to Vietnam.
 
You give me second class houses
And second class schools.
Do you think that all the colored folks
Are just second class fools?
Mr. Backlash, I’m gonna leave you
With the backlash blues.
 
When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash
All you got to offer
Is your mean old white backlash
But the world is big
Big and bright and round
And it’s full of folks like me
Who are black, yellow, beige and brown.
Mr. Backlash, I’m gonna leave you
With the backlash blues.
 
Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just what do you think I got to lose?
I’m gonna leave you
With the backlash blues
You’re the one will have the blues
Not me, just wait and see.

Dr King’s voice was never silenced — it lived on the the memories of the many that heard him and lives on today in recordings and videos readily available all over the internet — and Dr. King inspired many others to speak out on the necessity of equal opportunity and freedom for all — a work that is very much still in progress today.

We_the_people__

 

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Rock, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Overcast

Overcast1

This debut album by the Southern California group, Overcast, recorded in January of 1968, and released prematurely on April 1, 1968 prior to any marketing effort or activity, due to a simple clerical mistake, sold less than 800 copies, many of which were purchased by family, friends and, even though they were given several gratis copies, band members themselves.  It was first re-released in 1989 as a CD and later pressed on 180 gram vinyl as a limited edition LP; one can also find one or more tracks included in various compilations and box sets.

Bill Fortney was born in Whittier, California, and moved to La Mirada in 1959 at the age of 11, learning guitar from his uncle, who being intermittently unemployed, lived on and off with his sister, Bill’s mother, and her family, giving guitar and piano lessons to neighborhood children and, on occasion, playing studio gigs recording unaccredited guitar work for technically deficient rock guitarists or providing short passages of  acoustic or electric guitar for lower budget movie soundtracks.  The young nephew never took a liking to the piano, there was none in the Fortney home, but, instead, Bill spent hours upon hours playing all three of his uncle’s guitars until his father bought him an inexpensive nylon-stringed acoustic guitar for his 15th birthday and then a second-hand scarlet-red Vox Clubman electric guitar for his 17th birthday.

In his senior year of high school, Bill hooked up with Douglas Brandt and David Amato from nearby Buena Park and played local high school dances under the band name The Blue Ravens, then The Blue Jeans, then The Ever Expanding Bright Blue Jeans,  covering everything from early Beatles and Beach Boys to singles by The Bachelors, The Marketts and the Hondells. It was during this time that Fortney and Brandt starting taking chord sequences from the various songs they had learned by ear and imposed new melodies and words to create their own songs.  These rarely went over well when played for a dance audience, but were worked and reworked until Jan 12, 1968, when The Ever Expanding Bright Blue Jeans, now named Overcast, a name change that happened shortly after watching the Doors on the Jonathan Winters show in late December 1967, with Fortney and Brandt agreeing on the need for a shorter and somewhat darker name,  had their first of two three-hour studio sessions to record their debut album, originally proposed by drummer David Amato to be titled, “With a Chance of Showers”, but changed simply to Overcast after the record label tried to get them to change the name of the band from “Overcast” to “A Chance of Showers.”

The album opens up with the bass-dominated instrumental “Weather Endeavor” which is primarily blues-based except for a psychedelic middle section in which Douglas Brandt’s friend, Rick Stephenson plays saxophone against Fortney’s wailing, Hendrix-influenced guitar. In this middle section, the band modulates from C major to D major with a ensuing mish-mash of major, minor and dominant seventh chords until a sustained half-diminished seventh-chord on B precedes a decisive return back to C major for a heavily modified A section rampant with chord substitutions.  The result, though adventurous and unusual, comes off more unfocused than artful.

This is then compensated for by the second  track,  “Action Reaction”,  which is a simple three-chord riff-based rocker, with Brandt’s bass conspicuously emphasized and borderline decent drum work from David Amato.

The third track “Break Out of Salina, Kansas”, is a two-part five-minute track with the first part containing the same chord sequences as The Door’s “Break on Through” and the second part matching the chord sequencing of The Door’s “Soul Kitchen.”

Side one closes out with “Please Plead Plea”, a sorrowful lament entreating the love interest of the song to apologize for past wrongs and beg to be taken back. Again Brandt’s bass stands out with Fortney’s electric guitar imploring and beseeching throughout.

Side two opens up with “Fifth Tuesday of March” which is similar to the Kink’s “Love me ’till the Sun Shines.” This track is followed by “Sawdust and Certainty?” with marimba and organ contributing to a song full of contrasts, the music vacillating between contending against and partnering with decidedly opaque and impenetrable lyrics.

The third song of side two is “Sampson and the Philistines” a musical sermon against giving into the establishment, cutting one’s hair and becoming blind to the evils of the military-industrial complex — especially when this is done for the sake of landing a summer job.

The fourth song, “Short Wave Radio Girl” is based on the chord sequence of the Hondell’s “Younger Girl” but faster paced and with an added section in the middle based on another local group’s work, The Parade’s 1967 hit “Sunshine Girl.”

The album ends with “Electrical Connection”, apparently an attempt to create something akin to The Door’s “Light My Fire”, though clearly falling short commercially and artistically. Claire Stanston proves effective on organ, and, once again, we have Rick Stephenson on tenor saxophone and some notable guitar work by Fortney.

All tracks written by Bill Fortney and Douglas Brandt except where noted.

Side A

No.

Title

Length

1.

 “Weather Endeavor” (Fortney, Brandt, Polson, Amato, Rick Stephenson)

7:19

2.

 “Action Reaction”

3:25

3.

 “Break Out of Salinas Kansas“

5:04

4.

 “Please Plea Plead”

3:51

Side B

No.

Title

Length

7.

 “Fifth Tuesday of March”

2:54

8.

 “Sawdust and Certainty?” (Fortney, Polson, Claire Stanston, Paul Mayer)

3:22

9.

 “Sampson and the Philistines”

2:52

10.

 “Short Wave Radio Girl”

4:31

11.

 “Electrical Connection” (Fortney, Brandt, Polson, Amato, Claire Stantson, Rick Stephenson)

5:47

Personnel

Overcast

  • Bill Fortney – guitar, lead vocals
  • Douglas Brandt – bass guitar, vocals
  • Greg Polson, guitar
  • David Amato, drums

Additional Personnel

  • Rick Stephenson – tenor saxophone
  • Claire Stanston – organ, piano
  • Paul Mayer – marimba

 

 

Category:

1968, Fifty Year Friday, Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Joni Mitchell; Song to a Seagull

joni song seagull

Working in coffee houses and folk clubs, first in Toronto and then in the states, Roberta Joan Anderson, or simply Joni Anderson, and then later Joni Mitchell (taking her new surname as a result of a brief marriage from 1965-1967 to a Michigan folk-singer) begin getting attention for her song writing skills as more established artists with recording contracts begin to cover her songs.  First there was folksinger Tom Rush recording  “Urge for Going”, after Rush presented it to Judy Collins, who was not interested, then country singer George Hamilton IV placing it on the country charts for 21 weeks with it peaking at the number seven spot.  Then Buffy Sainte-Marie  recorded “The Circle Game”) and Dave Van Ronk recorded “Both Sides Now”, followed by Judy Collins recording that same song and another on her 1967 Wildflowers album with “Both Sides Now” being a major hit, by far Collins’ biggest hit, peaking at 8 on the pop charts, and 3 on the adult contemporary charts.

Joni’s own chance at commercial recordings came with David Crosby hearing her in a club in Florida and then convincing Reprise records to record Mitchell as a folk-rock artist.  David took ownership of production, basically taking a more-or-less hands-off approach except for the well-intended mistake of having Joni sing into the open grand piano, forcing the removal of high frequencies in final production, resulting in a lower fidelity album.

With this very first Joni Mitchell album, we have a collection of songs all written by creating the music first and then adding the lyrics, and yet fitting them together in such a way so that neither is diluted. There are no major hits on this album, put there are a number of gems, the most sparkling is “Marcie”, which is representative of Joni Mitchell’s amazing ability to craft effective and meaningful words to align with her music. This is not the strongest or best selling of Joni’s many albums, but it is one no lover of music or lyrics should mistakenly ignore.  It is with this very album that Joni Mitchell begins the climb to her current legendary status, and becomes worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence of earlier 20th Century greats like Cole Porter, writing music with a recognizable identity and a level of merit that earnestly invites repeated attentive listenings.

joni-mitchell-song-to-a-seagull-ab (2)

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by Joni Mitchell.

Side One: I Came to the City

#

Title

Length

1

 “I Had a King”

3:37

2.

 “Michael from Mountains”

3:41

3.

 “Night in the City”

2:30

4.

 “Marcie”

4:35

5.

 “Nathan La Franeer”

3:18

Side 2: Out of the City and Down to the Seaside

#

Title

Length

6.

 “Sisotowbell Lane”

4:05

7.

 “The Dawntreader”

5:04

8.

 “The Pirate of Penance”

2:44

9.

 “Song to a Seagull”

3:51

10.

 “Cactus Tree”

4:35

Personnel

  • Joni Mitchell – guitar, piano, vocals, artwork for album cover
  • Stephen Stills – bass on “Night in the City”
Technical

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Music, Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; United States of America

Zappa WOIIFTM_

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: We’re Only in It for the Money

In the summer of 1969 my family drove up to the San Francisco to take a cruise to Alaska on the Princess Cruise Line Ship,  MS Italia, and visited with my Aunt and then dropped me off for most of the day to visit with my cousin who was rooming with two or three other college students.  As typical, there the living room was the shared area, and it was well-stocked with a stereo system and dozens of LPs.  Several of them were recent recordings of Baroque music, this being the era of the baroque revival where driving around San Francisco one can find multiple FM stations playing mostly baroque music with works of not only J.S. Bach and Telemann, but seemingly dozens of Italian Baroque composers with names like Torelli, Tartini, Tortellini, Samartini, Scarlatti, Spumoni,  and on and on. So though my natural instinct was to dive into the treasures of Baroque music stacked around the stereo and against the sides of the speakers, my attention was redirected by an album that looked like Sgt. Peppers, but clearly was not.

“My roommate is a big Frank Zappa fan”, explained my cousin. “He’s got all the albums.”

That is, all the albums up to the summer of 1969.  And so I started with “We’re Only In It For the Money”, intrigued and yet mostly thrown off balance for much of side one and, to a lesser extent side two, but comforted by having the lyrics printed on the back.   Then putting on “Reuben and the Jets”, I was even more puzzled, abandoning it at the end of the first side, going on to the next Zappa album, and then ultimately shifting to one of the many Baroque albums I had initially neglected.

A few weeks later, during my first semester in college, I was able to explore Zappa’s early catalog at my own pace, and appreciated better the musicianship, music, and unconventional point of view, though not particularly embracing the sarcastically, disparaging tone and the interspersed droppings of scatology that were as much a Zappa trademark as the predictably unpredictable musical discontinuity and divergent shifts. I would not become a Zappa fan until Hot Rats, but was still able to enjoy and laugh at these early albums, particularly Freak Out, Absolutely Free, and We’re Only it For the Money. 

So Fifty Years later, I am not yet ready pronounce, We’re Only it For the Money as a masterpiece of Western music, but can unequivocally state that it is a work of genius and something everyone should hear, if not just for purely musical reasons, for both musical and historical purposes.

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by Frank Zappa.

Side One

#

Title

Length

1.

 “Are You Hung Up?“

1:23

2.

 “Who Needs the Peace Corps?“

2:34

3.

 “Concentration Moon”

2:22

4.

 “Mom & Dad”

2:16

5.

 “Telephone Conversation”

0:48

6.

 “Bow Tie Daddy”

0:33

7.

 “Harry, You’re a Beast”

1:22

8.

 “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?“

1:03

9.

 “Absolutely Free“

3:24

10.

 “Flower Punk[11]“

3:03

11.

 “Hot Poop”

0:26

Side Two

 #

Title

Length

1.

 “Nasal Retentive Calliope Music”

2:03

2.

 “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black“

2:01

3.

 “The Idiot Bastard Son”

3:18

4.

 “Lonely Little Girl” (“It’s His Voice on the Radio”)

1:09

5.

 “Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance“

1:35

6.

 “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (Reprise)”

0:57

7.

 “Mother People”

2:32

8.

 “The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny”

6:25
Total length:

39:15

united states of america

The United States of America: The United States of America

Two days after We’re Only in It for the Money was released on March, 4, 1968, another unconventional and relatively radical rock album was released, the work of Joseph Byrd, other band members including vocalist Dorthy Moskowitz, and producer David Robinson.

I first heard this band in my first semester in college in 1973 as part of Music History 251, when the track “Garden of Earthly Delights” was played on the classroom’s barely adequate stereo as part of the listening example included in the course workbook. I was impressed but when looking for that record that weekend could not find it in even the larger chain record stores and so forgot about it until years later when it became available again through reissue.

The first track, “The American Metaphysical Circus”, opens up much in the spirit of Charles Ives with competing marching bands, a piano playing “At a Georgia Camp Meeting” and a calliope.  But going beyond Ives is the electronic effects — no Moog synthesizer, this was beyond the financial means of the group — but creatively generated effects from more basic sound wave generation equipment.

More obvious than the Ives’ influence here, is the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers’ influence.  The lyrics of that first track hearkens back to “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” — at least in the first verse:

“At precisely 8:05, 
Doctor Frederick von Meyer
Will attempt his famous dive
Through a solid sheet of luminescent fire.”

However as the song progresses the lyrics darken:

“In the center of the ring
They are torturing a bear
And although he cannot sing
They can make him whistle Londonderry Air”

And then political:

“And the price is right
The cost of one admission is your mind.

“We shall shortly institute
A syncopation of fear
While it’s painful, it will suit
Many customers whose appetites are queer.”

And such goes much of the album with decidedly left-wing, if not communist-inspired viewpoints (one track is titled “Love Song for the Dead Ché”), embedded into adventurous, well-crafted music.   This album, the group’s only offering (they broke up shortly after the release) is sometimes mentioned as a forerunner to progressive rock. For anyone interested in building up a collection of more exploratory and ambitious 1968 “rock” music, it is worth the trouble to track this album down — and it is a suitable companion for We’re Only in It for the Money next time you have ninety minutes set aside for some uninterrupted listening of some of the more progressive and unusual music from 1968.

Side One

Title

Length

1.

 “The American Metaphysical Circus” (Joseph Byrd)

4:56

2.

 “Hard Coming Love” (Byrd, Dorothy Moskowitz)

4:41

3.

 “Cloud Song” (Byrd, Moskowitz)

3:18

4.

 “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (Byrd, Moskowitz)

2:39

5.

 “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar”

(Byrd, Moskowitz)

3:51

Side Two

Title

Length

6.

 “Where Is Yesterday” (Gordon Marron, Ed Bogas, Moskowitz)

3:08

7.

 “Coming Down” (Byrd, Moskowitz)

2:37

8.

 “Love Song for the Dead Ché” (Byrd)

3:25

9.

 “Stranded in Time” (Marron, Bogas)

1:49

10.

 “The American Way of Love”

  1. “Metaphor for an Older Man” (Byrd)
  2. “California Good-Time Music” (Byrd)
  3. “Love Is All” (Byrd, Moskowitz, Rand Forbes, Craig Woodson, Marron)”

6:38

Personnel

The band

Additional musicians

  • Ed Bogas – occasional organ, piano, calliope

Technical staff

  • Glen Kolotkin, Arthur Kendy – remixer
  • Richard Durrett – instrument design engineer
  • David Diller – engineer
  • David Rubinson – producer

Category:

1968, Fifty Year Friday, Music, Political Music, Progressive Rock, Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Tony Scott – Music for Yoga Meditations and Other Joys; Al Kooper, Blood, Sweat & Tears – Child Is Father to the Man

Tony Scott Yoga

As a jazz instrument, the clarinet can excel from the hottest of jazz styles to the coolest and laid back genres of jazz, but there is something inherently cool, soft and tender in the lower and mid range of the clarinet that lends itself particularly well to more impressionistic. more reflective, and more introspective music.   As bebop extended into various flavors of cool jazz, Tony Scott first appeared on the jazz scene recording with Miles Davis and other jazz musicians on three tracks for “Sassy” Sarah Vaughan’s 1950 album, Sarah Vaughan In Hi-Fi. In 1953, he recorded a 10 inch album for Brunswick, “Music After Midnight”, with the music including elements bebop, cool and swing, showcasing the clarinet as well as the talents of now well-known jazz greats, bassist Milt Hinton and drummer Philly Joe Jones, as well as the versatile and gifted pianist Dick Katz.

In December 1959 , Tony Scott visited Japan and recorded some music for a radio program with Yasko Nakashima.  When Tony asked Yasko if she would like to do some improvisation around the scale (set of notes) of the previous piece they had played, she deferred, not having a background in improvising: improvisation not being a component of traditional Japanese classical music.  He then turned to the conductor of the ensemble, Shinichi Yuize, a koto player, who, though, had not previously improvised publicly, was willing to give it a go.  Four years later, in early 1964, during Tony’s last visit to Japan, Shinichi Yuize, shakuhachi artist, Hozan Yamamoto and Tony recorded what many consider the first New Age album, Music for Zen Meditation.

No additional albums appeared to have been recorded or released by Tony Scott, until February 1968, when Music for Yoga Meditation and Other Joys was recorded. American Collin Walcott, student of Ravi Shankar, and later Paul Horn associate and then member of Oregon  plays sitar pairing up with Tony Scott who is on clarinet. This album, with its wide stereo separation and forwardness of the clarinet and sitar,  comes more closely to being New Age material then the 1964 “Zen” album which is more a blend of jazz and true classical Japanese music.

For whatever reason, Verve waited until 1972 to release Music for Yoga Meditation and Other Joys.

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

  1. “Prahna (Life Force)” – 4:15
  2. “Shiva (The Third Eye)” – 5:06
  3. “Samadhi (Ultimate Bliss)” – 4:49
  4. “Hare Krishna (Hail Krishna)” – 6:15
  5. “Hatha (Sun and Moon)” – 3:40
  6. “Kundalina (Serpent Power)” – 4:42
  7. “Sahasrara (Highest Chakra)” – 3:10
  8. “Triveni (Sacred Knot)” – 3:20
  9. “Shanti (Peace)” – 2:48
  10. “Homage to Lord Krishna” – 5:04
  • All music composed by Tony Scott

Personnel

Production

Blood,Sweat&TearsChildIsFathertotheMan

Musician, Producer and songwriter, Al Kooper, put together the first jazz-rock group, Blood, Sweat and Tears, recording Child is the Father to Man in late 1967, with Columbia releasing the album on February 21, 1968.  Though this album is far more pop and rock than jazz, there are some jazz elements, including Randy Brecker on trumpet and flugelhorn supplemented with  saxophone, trombone and an additional trumpet.  Kooper provides the starting point from which the later versions of BS&T evolve, and paves the way for other jazz-rock ensembles like Chicago, Chase and Lighthouse.

Al Kooper departed from BS&T shorted after the release of this album, apparently due to creative differences, with his next project the bluesy jam album Super Session with Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills.

Personnel [from Wikipedia]

Blood, Sweat & Tears

  • Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
  • Bobby Colomby – drums, percussion; backing vocals (tracks 4, 10)
  • Jim Fielder – bass guitar, fretless bass guitar
  • Dick Halligan – trombone
  • Steve Katz – guitars; lead vocals (tracks 3, 8); backing vocals (tracks 3); lute (track 6)
  • Al Kooper – organ, piano; lead vocals (tracks 2, 4-7, 9-12); ondioline (track 8)
  • Fred Lipsius – piano, alto saxophone
  • Jerry Weiss – trumpet, flugelhorn; backing vocals (track 4)

Additional musicians

  • Anahid Ajemian – violin
  • Fred Catero – sound effects
  • Harold Coletta – viola
  • Paul Gershman – violin
  • Al Gorgoni – organ, guitar, vocals
  • Manny Green – violin
  • Julie Held – violin
  • Doug James – shaker
  • Harry Katzman – violin
  • Leo Kruczek – violin
  • Harry Lookofsky – violin
  • Charles McCracken – cello
  • Melba Moorman – choir, chorus
  • Gene Orloff – violin
  • Valerie Simpson – choir, chorus
  • Alan Schulman – cello
  • John Simon – organ, piano, conductor, cowbell
  • The Manny Vardi Strings

Production

  • Producers: Bob Irwin, John Simon
  • Engineer: Fred Catero
  • Mixing: John Simon
  • Mastering: Vic Anesini
  • Arrangers: Fred Catero, Al Gorgoni, Fred Lipsius, Alan Schulman, John Simon
  • Art direction: Howard Fritzson
  • Photography: Bob Cato, Don Hunstein
  • Packaging: Michael Cimicata

Category:

1968, Fifty Year Friday, Jazz Rock, Music, New Age, Non-Zumwalt, Progressive Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: The Don Ellis Orchestra “Electric Bath”

electric_bath

Is it possible that the first truly progressive rock album was not a rock album, but a jazz album?  For those that adamantly insist that the most adventurous and exploratory rock music of 1967 and early 1968 is really not progressive rock but “proto-prog, such prog fundamentalists often require that any music to be considered true progressive rock must display a relatively high level of musicianship and deploy mixed meter or unusual time signatures, 20th century instruments, a wide range of dynamics and instrumental combinations, effects such as tape loops or use of quarter tones, and extended length tracks painting a colorful, sonically rich landscape.  If we buy into such requirements, then perhaps we should consider this modern big-band jazz album recorded in September 1967 and released either in late 1967 or early 1968, to validly qualify as the first progressive rock album.

In terms of quality and excitement, The Don Ellis Orchestra’s “Electric Bath” should please any “Close to the Edge”, “In the Court of the Crimson King”, “Thick as A Brick”, “Selling England By the Pound”,  “Brain Salad Surgery”. or “Power and the Glory” fan.

A progressive rock album has to start with a fervently vigorous or otherwise bigger-than-life immersive track such as King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man”, Genesis’s “Watcher of the Skies”, or the opening to ELP’s Tarkus.  “Indian Lady” is just that with its fanfare opening, a meter of alternating 3 and 2,  and a strong distinct theme running relentlessly forward, swinging ferociously with a indisputably bluesy orientation.  We also have sitar, electric piano, and most notably, Don Ellis on a four-valve quarter-tone enabled trumpet.

The second track, “Alone”, by far the shortest at less than six minutes, is a basically a samba, a musical form from Brazil that became so popular in the mid sixties, but in 5/4 time without any sense of awkwardness, but just the opposite, fully liberated and unconstrained.

Ending the first side is the brilliant “Turkish Bath” with sitar and a exotically distorted reeds sounding not so much like instruments from Turkey, but from an even more exotic location, probably from another planet in some remote solar system. Sitar and quarter-tones contribute to the appropriate balance of spices.

“Open Beauty” open side two of the original LP, and provides appropriate contrast and musical reflection.  Elegantly executed by the band, this composition is haunting, surreal and evocative, with ebbs and flows of intensity until a little over two-thirds of the way in when we get a tape-delay Don Ellis solo  which initially echoes with layered fifths and then more adventurously explores into more expressive and polyphonically combative territory.

The last track, “New Horizons” is the strongest, longest and most remarkably inventive of the album with relentless energy driven by a 17/8 5-5-7 pattern with amazing ensemble and solo trumpet passages.  The work unfolds like a story with contrast and subplots ending with explosive energy winding down into an emphatic, punctuated coda.

This album should appeal to anyone that loves adventurous and well-written, arranged and performed music whether their preference is classical, progressive rock, progressive heavy metal, be-bop or big band jazz.

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

All compositions by Don Ellis except as indicated

  1. “Indian Lady” – 8:06
  2. “Alone” (Hank Levy) – 5:32
  3. “Turkish Bath” (Ron Myers) – 10:16
  4. “Open Beauty” – 8:29
  5. “New Horizons” – 12:20
  6. “Turkish Bath” [Single] (Myers) – 2:52 Bonus track on CD reissue
  7. “Indian Lady” [Single] – 2:58 Bonus track on CD reissue

Personnel

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, jazz, Progressive Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: David Axelrod, Electric Prunes and Mass in F Minor

masspapr

In 1967, the previously unknown, recently formed, L.A. band, The Electric Prunes, grabbed public recognition with the quintessential psychedelic top 40 hit,  Annette Tucker’s and lyricist Nancie Mantz’s “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.” Soon the Prunes were guests on TV, miming performances to their big hit, and touring the country.

in 1968, the band’s manager Lenny Poncher, their producer Dave Hassinger, and the Reprise Records  management, determined  that the Electric Prunes would record some type of concept album from material provided by producer/composer/arranger David Axelrod.  Axelrod was given the freedom to compose whatever he thought most appropriate, with the hopes of furthering the Prunes’ name recognition.

The final material composed by Axelrod, a psychedelic setting of the Latin Mass, with sections crafted for appropriate freely-expressive, acid-rock improvisation, ultimately required the band to be augmented by studio musicians.  Also, since the band was as much of a commodity (producer Dave Hassinger owned the rights to the name at that time) as individual members, this particular formation of Electric Prunes would soon be replaced by other musicians.

However, we did get a rather interesting, if less than stellar, concept album — a rock mass, a couple of years after Vince Guaraldi’s Jazz mass (see below) and three years before Leonard’s Bernstein’s mass (originally intended to be a modern setting of a traditional mass, but ultimately realized as a stage work.)


Though uneven, this Electric Prune’s Mass in F Minor is worth listening to.  It uses an abbreviated form of the mass, but still has the major sections. The Kyrie Eleison is later included in the film Easy Rider.  The Credo and Agnus Dei are the most interesting. Though most music historians would not classify this as progressive rock, this is, for 1968,  a musically progressive setting of the mass.  Also, this album should get a nod for being a concept album, including symphonic instruments, and some notable guitar work.  One can check out a lower quality audio version on youtube:

 

 

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Progressive Rock, Rock

Tagged with:

Fifty Year Friday: Spirit

51m6df7irtl

 

Randy California, born Randy Wolfe, was a native Calfornian, born in Los Angeles, but when his step-dad, jazz drummer Ed Cassidy  (the gentleman with the bald head in the left upper portion of their first album cover; a drummer that played gigs with Cannonball Adderly, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Roland Kirk, and Lee Konitz and was a founding member of  Rising Sons with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder) had some work lined up in New York City, the family moved to an apartment complex in Queens in 1966.  Randy soon met Jimi Hendrix and then played with Hendrix that very summer  as a member of Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.   It was while they were playing together, that Hendrix started calling Randy Wolfe, “Randy California” and another Randy in the band, Randy Palmer, “Randy Texas.”

Randy Wolfe took the “Randy California” name back west, forming Red Roosters with his step-dad, a band that eventually evolved into “Spirits Rebellious” and then just Spirit. Randy was sixteen years old. Besides Randy and Ed, Spirit included composer, keyboard player and lead vocalist, Jay Ferguson, Mark Andes on bass and backing vocals, (who later played with Ferguson in Jo Jo Gunne in the early 1970s, Firefall in the late 1970’s and Heart in the 1980s.) and John Locke (who later joined Nazareth in the 1980’s) also on keyboards. Randy was still sixteen when Spirit’s first album, “Spirit”, was released on January 22, 1968.

None of the songs on Spirit’s debut album are typical pop songs, most having more of an jazz or a psychedelic or progressive rock ethos, with a prevailing ABA form with the B section being a instrumental, partly improvisational section providing contrast to the more traditional song-like A section. The last track, “Elijah”, due to its extended length, stretches out the ABA concept to a rondo-like form (ABACADAEA) with improvised passages between the recurring theme.

All the tracks on the album are notable, with 9 of the 11  songs written or co-written by Ferguson.  “Elijah” was written by John Locke;  Randy California wrote one of the tracks, “Taurus”, a well-written, nicely arranged instrumental following the Andes/Ferguson song, “Mechanical World”, the only track with single status on the album.

“Taurus” opens up with a orchestral introduction that floats into a soft, relaxing two-part theme which is played twice (this not being one of the tracks with ABA form on the album.)  The striking part of the first half of the theme is its similarity to Zeppelin’s
“Stairway to Heaven.”  The casual listener may very well consider that Zeppelin borrowed Taurus for that beautiful guitar intro in “Stairway”, particularly if  that listener is aware that Zeppelin opened for Spirit in several 1968 concerts, that Zeppelin included material from the first track of the same Spirit album, “Fresh Garbage” in a medley they performed live, that Page is on record as stating that he had owned several Spirit albums, and that there are over a dozen noteworthy cases of  Jimmy Page and Robert Plant “borrowing without credit” material from other artists.

So similar is the connection between “Taurus” and “Stairway” that ultimately in 2014, the estate of Randy California brought a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin. Randy California had drowned in the Pacific Ocean in 1997, at the age of only 45, when swimming into the ocean to save his twelve-year old son from a rip current.  Though giving up his life in the effort, Randy managed to push his son to safety.  Now seventeen years after his death, lawyers for his estate planned to get a co-writing credit for Randy on “Stairway to Heaven.”

Unfortunately, the judge would not allow the jury to hear side-by-side comparisons of “Taurus” and “Stairway to Heaven.” Instead, he only allowed the performance of the two songs on keyboard by a hired musician using as the source the registered sheet music  from the Library of Congress, music that differed from the final version on the recordings. Also ruled inadmissible were expert witnesses that were lined up to talk about sixteen instances of Jimmy Page’s past use of uncredited material, the judge ruling that any past plagiarism, alleged or actual, was not relevant to this particular case in question.  Adding to this was the odd approach and personality of the prosecuting attorney for the California estate, who quickly exasperated the judge and who scored important points for the defense when questioning Page about his being influenced by the Disney/Mary Poppins song ” Chim Chim Cher-ee”.

The jury ruled in favor of the defense, and certainly there are notable differences in the two passages: the “Stairway” melody goes to A at the end of the first chord and then on to B of the next chord while “Taurus”, less remarkably, descends to A and then G#.  If they jury had heard actual recordings, its seems almost certain they would have ruled otherwise.

Personally, I am glad to have both songs as part of our musical legacy and understand how easy it is to come up with the descending chromatic chord progression used in these two songs — something anyone could accidentally discover in the course of composing by hitting sequentially descending notes for their bass line.  I am also sympathetic to how common it is to put together a song based on something one had heard a long time ago and unintentionally brought into their composing process as so clearly happened with George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” — just an unintended revisiting of “She’s So Fine.”  In the case with “Taurus”, it seems Jimmy Page had heard that song several times, forgotten about it, started to play with the chord progressions and went in the direction of a recreation of something close to what his subconscious mind was already familiar with.  In my view, a living Randy California wasn’t particularly interested in who got credit, but his descendants, perhaps needing or wanting money, had a greater interest in assignment of authorship.

You can check out the video below for a good explanation of how these two songs are similar (and differ) in their sharing of the passage in question. If you have any thoughts on this Spirit album, or thoughts on the similarities of “Taurus” and “Stairway to Heaven” please don’t hesitate comment.  Also what are some of your favorite albums from 1968?  I know one of mine is still a few months away from being fifty years old, and plan to discuss that if I even if I have lost all my remaining, exceedingly patient readers by then.

 

Click her for track listing [from Wikipedia]

 

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Progressive Rock, Rock

Tagged with: