Fifty Year Friday: April 2021
Caravan: In the Land of Grey and Pink
Caravan releases their third album, In the Land of Grey and Pink, on April 8,1971. Richard Sinclair takes a more prominent role providing three of the four songs on side one with his cousin, keyboardist Richard Sinclair, providing much of the music and compositions for side two.
Though not particularly popular upon its release, and difficult to spot in any record store in the U.S. in 1971, over time the album has gotten more attention, eventually achieving gold status. This third album, notably better than the previous two Caravan albums, particularly benefits from Richard Hitchock’s contributions as the producer (the same person who would produce Genesis’s Foxtrot the next year), the relatively generous studio time allocated, and the work ethic and level of creativity of the musicians.
The album opens with the sounds of trombone and percussion that begin Richard Sinclair’s “Golf Girl”, a playful homage to the woman Richard would shortly marry, followed by the initially reflective and more exploratory “Winter Wine.” The Pye Hastings composition that follows, “Love to Love You” is more pop than progressive but benefits nicely from contributions on flute by Pye’s brother Jimmy Hastings. The final track, the title track written by Richard Sinclair, provides a strong close to side one with notable contributions on keyboards from Dave Sinclair.
Side two, taken up by the single composition, “Nine Feet Underground”, is really a medley of multiple unrelated compositions nicely balanced against each other. Like side one, the band is credited for all the music, though in this case Dave Sinclair is the primary composer providing lyrics on one song and getting help on lyrics from Pye Hastings on another. Dave Sinclair’s keyboard work is particularly notable, though there are fine contributions from Pye and cousin Richard, the latter’s bass guitar work being particularly captivating.
The Nice: Elegy
After Emerson was with ELP, and Dave Jackson and Brian Davison were with their respective groups, Charisma released, in April 1971, three live tracks from a December 1969 concert at the Fillmore East plus one studio take of Dylan’s “My Back Pages” as the album Elegy. The first two tracks showcase Keith Emerson’s keyboard skills, and even if some of the piano work doesn’t rise above what the very best jazz pianists might consider merely ordinary, Emerson has a way of creating narrative-like instrumental performances that are as engaging and musically satisfying making both tracks on side one special listening experiences. On side two of the original LP we get a trio-version of The Nice performing the scherzo from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony and an timeless document of the trio, with Emerson on electric organ, tackling Leonard Bernstein’s America. More modern digital releases may include two BBC radio live performances.
Elton John: 11-17-70 (or 17-11-70)
Recorded in the A & R recording studio on 52nd street in New York on November 17, 1970 for a live radio broadcast, 11-17-70 nicely captures the qualities and strengths of the original Elton John trio of Elton, bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson. I first heard part of the album while listening to FM radio sometime in April 1970, and quickly went out and bought the LP. This provided a nice companion to the two studio albums I had purchased in 1970, Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection, and also provided more emphasis on the Elton’s acoustic piano skills and Dee Murray’s electric bass. In many ways this is my favorite Elton John album, capturing this trio at its musical peak. The music was not originally intended to be released on vinyl, but the prevalence of bootleg recordings of the broadcast provided a good economic incentive to do so even though ultimately sales were hampered by competition with such bootlegs including one 2 LP set which included more content than on the 11-17-70 single LP official release. A two LP set was released in April of 2017 containing all the original recording material, though not presented in the original order of the broadcast.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: 4 Way Street
Recorded in the summer of 1970 and released on April 7, 1971, the 4 Way Street live album provides a great overview of how talented these four individuals really were as songwriters and musicians. Material includes a range of music including acoustic tracks on the first two sides of this double LP album, and electric guitar dominated tracks on all but the encore acoustic track on sides three and four. The version to get is the expanded version which includes additional tracks for each artist from the acoustic set of these 1970 performances.
Chase: Chase
With the popularity of jazz rock in its peak following top selling albums by groups like Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, thirty-six year old fiery trumpeter Bill Chase, previously a member of Stan Kenton, Manyard Ferguson and Woody Herman Big bands, and freelancing at gigs in Las Vegas, formed an eponymous band that featured his virtuosic high register and three additional trumpet players along with keyboards, electric guitar, bass guitar, percussion, and vocals (vocals provided by trumpeters Ted Piercefield and Jerry Van Blair and vocalist Terry Richards.) The group’s first album, with arrangements and some compositions from Bill Chase, was recorded in late 1970 and released in April 1970. Thanks to the success and liberal airplay of “Get it On”, the album sold fairly well, climbing up to position 22 on the albums’ chart that year. The album shares similarities to Blood, Sweat and Tears second and third albums, primarily distinguished and differentiated by Bill Chase’s arrangements, compositional style and the use of four trumpets and no saxes or trombones. Bill Chase would release two more albums before his death in 1974 from a twin-engine plane crash transporting him and other musicians to a county fair in Minnesota.
Doors: LA Woman and Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
Seemingly an artifact of an earlier era, in a year where rock had now splintered into so many genres, The Doors released their sixth studio album, L.A. Woman, on April 1971, Though having much in common with previous material, with a little more emphasis on a blues-leaning bias, the album contained the notable, somewhat minimalist and moody, almost hypnotic “Riders of the Storm” — a musical piece with more in common with German progressive rock bands than one might expect. All in all a good but not game-changing album.
The Rolling Stones also focused more on a bluesy musical identity, providing a very strong album of more traditional but nonetheless somewhat distinct set of tracks centered around what was apparently the band’s drug culture. My first exposure to the music was from the constant repeated airplay of Brown Sugar and at a high school dance band where the band covered several of the songs on the album. The album may not be particularly complex or sophisticated, but it deserves significant praise for just being plain enjoyable. Listening to it now, in 2021 on Spotify hooked up to a high quality audio system, the album still is vital and full of honest energy. I never bought the album itself, but like many took notice when its unique album cover was first displayed in record stores. Often the zipper was pulled halfway down, done apparently, per Wikipedia, to minimalize damage the zipper would do when albums were tightly packed together for shipment, and not due to curious shoppers fiddling with the front.
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