Birtha - My Pants Are Too Short

 

#Birtha #hard rock #blues rock #classic rock #boogie rock #heavy blues rock #1970s 

Hiding in a box under the frills and petticoats of a Victorian costume shop I spied “Spirit of Rock – The Probe Family Sampler”, It’s wild psychedelic cover featuring a naked green woman, adorned with strings of beads, throwing her head back in ectsasy had such an impact visually that I had to take her home. The opening track instantly blew me away. That was Birtha’s first single Free Spirit, female fueled rock like I never heard before, even my ovaries where banging along. Birtha pioneered the all female rock lineup, successfully breaking the mould of an almost exclusively male dominated genre. They paved the way for the likes of The Runaways and the Slits. These four ladies were highly accomplished musicians who totally kicked ass. Hailing from Los Angeles, Rosemary Butler (Bass) and Shele Pinnizotto (guitar) met at school where they formed their first band The Rapunzels. Rosemary went on to join the Ladybirds who opened for The Rolling Stones in 1965, whilst Shele got a job in a recording studio. In 1967 they came together again along with Sherry Hagler (Keyboard) and later joined by the extraordinary Liver Favela. Birtha had been gigging for four years playing on the west coast before they were signed. During their early performances they tested the water with their own material whilst throwing Motown and Rock covers into the mixture.
In November 1971, all-female blues rock act Fanny took off with their hit single Charity Ball. ABC Dunhill saw their chance and quickly signed up Birtha, taking up rank amongst label mates Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf. Birtha never earned the same commercial success as Fanny, though were both marketed as heavy rock. After two albums and a final single (a cover of Steely Dan’s Dirty Work) Birtha’s success waned and they were dropped by Dunhill before 1973 was out. For me, Birtha totally overshadow Fanny’s comparatively average blues sound. Birtha have huge rock appeal in a way that fanny just don’t, so Fanny, you can just get to the back of the queue and stay there!
Fanny’s label Reprise Records decided to brand their girls with the slogan “Get Behind Fanny.” Perhaps it was felt that rock audiences of the time would be put off by an all girl group. Whatever the reason, Dunhill would not be outdone and had to go one better with “Birtha Has Balls”. The slogan was a winner; especially when slapped onto their infamous T shirts. When they played the 1972 Rockingham Festival, members of Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac and the James Gang all chose to wear them for their own sets and revelers could clearly see the logo disappear from view as Alice left the arena hanging out of a helicopter still sporting his Birtha shirt. Oddly enough, Playboy magazine had a problem with the tastefulness of the Advert and refused to print the slogan on their matchboxes when they played at the Chicago club. Supporting the Kinks, Birtha hit the UK and even bagged an appearance in the British coffee table mag ‘Titbits’, posing topless on the front cover proclaiming “We want male groupies”. They were serious contenders who really lived up to their allocated metaphor, they are 100% women but there is no doubt that Birtha unquestionably has balls. I wish there were lots of all-female bands I could say cut it the same, but Birtha have to be my favorite all female band ever. They skillfully combine numbers which are gritty and heavy along side soulful blues numbers and ballads. They are seductive, solid, funky, from the heart sisters whose sound is unmistakably their own. Only Rosemary Butler went on to have a continuing career which disappointingly went in the totally opposite direction singing with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Dolly Parton.
BILLBOARD MAGAZINE - 9/9/72:
There is no getting around it. Birtha has it! They're an all chick group and we all know that you've sort of got to make allowances . . . well forget it, they project more power and drive than most male groups with similar instrumentation. The intensity and proficiency they exhibit is total rapture excelling both instrumentally & vocally. Rock on with "Free Spirit," "Judgment Day" and "Feeling Lonely."
This first eponymous album was produced by Steppenwolf’s producer Gabriel Mekler whose high credentials definitely work to their advantage. Birtha is a mammoth stomper and has to be the most powerful and versatile record ever made by an all-girl band. They got the same kind of groove as Grand Funk, heavy funk and blues laden guitars with crystal clear vocals, great harmonies and that all American sound. They are always bass driven; Rosemary has that deep humming sound that really pounds some seriously exiting energy into the songs. These girls are serious rockers; they kick the shit out of loads of male rock bands of the time and all time for that matter. Out of the four, three of them take lead vocal. For the main part though it’s Liver Favela, who has all the guts and rasp of Janis Joplin. With an abundance of untamed fervor, she is by far the coolest, and she’s without doubt the wildest singing female drummer you ever heard.  From: https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1439/

 

Black Sabbath - Live Brussels 1970

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Part 2

#Black Sabbath #Ozzy Osbourne #heavy metal #hard rock #classic rock #heavy blues rock #British blues rock #doom metal #1970s #live music video

Black Sabbath - Live in Paris 1970 Directed by Jacques Bourton. This footage was originally shot at Théatre 140 in Brussels, Belgium on October 3rd, 1970 for Yorkshire Television. Bootleggers have long repeated a fictional claim that done in Paris, but that has long since been debunked. In any case, this is the earliest footage of a complete concert of Black Sabbath in existence. Here they perform many songs from their most recent album at the time, Paranoid, as well as several from their debut. Interestingly, many of the songs from Paranoid feature their original pre-album lyrics - or Ozzy had simply forgotten the new ones! The original show was split into two halves and includes some behind-the scenes clips of the band before the show.  From: https://letterboxd.com/film/black-sabbath-live-in-paris/

In Finland, it is customary to yell "Soittakaa Paranoid" ("Play Paranoid") at a live band. It's a riff on the bizarre American tradition of yelling "Play Freebird" (a heckling practice the late comedian Bill Hicks referred to as "the mantra of the moron") at a live band. And this is merely one of many stories related to Black Sabbath's 2:48 second metal masterpiece "Paranoid." The band's biggest hit of their entire career which, according to members of Sabbath, only came to be because they needed to make the album a bit longer. According to drummer Bill Ward, whipping the head-pounding jam together took less than 30 minutes. Other members of Sabbath have varied recollections. When listening to the recording, Geezer Butler (who wrote the lyrics), along with Ozzy were both unsure about "Paranoid," as it sounded very similar to Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown." In a 2018 interview, Ozzy reiterated he wasn't even entirely sure what the word "paranoid" even meant at the time. Eventually, Ozzy asked Butler (much to the bassist's surprise) to explain the definition of the word to him in 1971. Oh, how the mythology and legend of Ozzy Osbourne never, ever disappoints – much like the history that went into making "Paranoid" and its enduring influence in metal, popular culture, and beyond. So, in no real particular order, let's get to the time Frank Zappa almost joined the band on stage in 1976 to perform three songs with Sabbath that he had previously learned to play. One of the songs was allegedly "Paranoid," a jam the band saved for their encores.
Frank Zappa was on team Black Sabbath early on, praising the band and specifically the song "Supernaut" from the group's 1972 powered-by-cocaine album Vol 4. As far as Sabbath goes, Geezer Butler was a Frank Zappa superfan whose life was "changed" after hearing Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention when he was still a teenager. Tony Iommi spoke about Zappa's love for Sabbath's "Snowblind" (also Vol. 4), and detailed the events of the show at Madison Square Garden in December of 1976 – the night Zappa was set to take the stage with Sabbath (after learning three of their songs). The plan was devised during Zappa's annual Thanksgiving dinner which was quite the rock and roll shindig. Frank had invited Geezer and Ozzy to his special Thanksgiving dinner in 1976 during which conversation turned to Zappa joining Sabbath on stage to perform two songs, "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" during the band's encore.
Unfortunately, Sabbath wasn't at the top of their game that night. In addition, Zappa hadn't been summoned for the show's soundcheck. Zappa told his version of the night's events to Sounds journalist Hugh Fielder saying when he showed up, Tony Iommi was having issues with his guitar strings and, at the last minute, changed them out. At this point, the crowd of 20K had been milling around for over an hour waiting for Sabbath to get going. And though there was a stack of sweet Marshalls waiting for Zappa on stage, he would only end up introducing Sabbath that night. Iommi recalled things a bit differently, echoing the notion Sabbath was not in top form and advised Zappa that joining them would've been "disastrous." Recordings of the show exist and at least one unofficial release, where you can hear Zappa's banter including describing Sabbath as the "rockin' teenage combo known to the universe as Black Sabbath." Understandably, the crowd went fucking bananas. Later, Iommi would take in Zappa's show in Birmingham, during which Zappa and The Mothers launched into a cover of another of Frank's favorite Sabbath songs, "Iron Man."  From: https://metalinjection.net/editorials/back-in-the-day/black-sabbaths-paranoid-almost-didnt-make-the-record-the-compelling-history-behind-their-biggest-single

 

Buddy Miles - Them Changes

 #Buddy Miles #soul #R&B #funk #classic rock #funk rock #psychedelic soul #1960s #1970s #ex-Electric Flag

Best known as the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys, Buddy Miles also had a lengthy solo career that drew from rock, blues, soul, and funk in varying combinations. Born George Miles in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 5, 1947, he started playing the drums at age nine, and joined his father's jazz band the Bebops at a mere 12 years old. As a teenager, he went on to play with several jazz and R&B outfits, most prominently backing vocal groups like Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots, and the Delfonics. In 1966, he joined Wilson Pickett's touring revue, where he was spotted by blues-rock guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Bloomfield had left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band earlier in 1967 and was putting together a new group, the Electric Flag, which was slated to be an ambitious fusion of rock, soul, blues, psychedelia, and jazz. Bloomfield invited Miles to join, and the band made its debut at the Monterey Pop Festival; unfortunately, the original lineup splintered in 1968. With founder Bloomfield gone, Miles briefly took over leadership of the band on its second studio album, which failed to reignite the public's interest.
With the Electric Flag's horn section in tow, Miles split to form his own group, the similarly eclectic Buddy Miles Express. Signed to Mercury, the group issued its debut album, Expressway to Your Skull, in 1968, with Miles' fellow Monterey Pop alum Jimi Hendrix in the producer's chair. In turn, Miles played on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album, and later took part in an all-star jam session that resulted in Muddy Waters' Fathers and Sons album. Hendrix also produced the Miles Express' follow-up, 1969's Electric Church, and disbanded his backing band the Experience later that year; shortly afterward, Hendrix, Miles, and bassist Billy Cox formed Band of Gypsys, one of the first all-Black rock bands. Bluesier and funkier than Hendrix's previous work, Band of Gypsys didn't last long in its original incarnation; Miles departed in 1970, replaced by Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, but not before his powerhouse work was showcased on the group's lone album, the live Band of Gypsys.
After backing John McLaughlin on 1970's Devotion, Miles returned to the role of bandleader and recorded his most popular album, Them Changes, in 1971; it stayed on the charts for more than a year, and the title cut became Miles' signature song. From December 1971 to April 1972, Miles toured with Carlos Santana, which produced the CBS-released concert document Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!; recorded inside an inactive volcano in Hawaii, the album sold very well. Miles cut a few more albums for CBS, participated in a short-lived Electric Flag reunion in 1974, then moved to Casablanca in 1975 for a pair of LPs.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/buddy-miles-mn0000943936#biography

Maria Muldaur - Don't You Make Me High (Don't You Feel My Leg)

 #Maria Muldaur #folk #blues #country #jazz #folk rock #Americana #pop rock #1960s #1970s

Blue Lu Barker was a New Orleans singer married to the guitarist Danny Barker. They wrote this very sensual song, with Blue Lu singing, "Don't you feel my leg 'cause if you feel my leg you're gonna feel my thigh, and if you feel my thigh, you're gonna go up high." This was pushing the limits in 1938. The song was produced by J. Mayo Williams, who was one of the biggest blues music producers of the '30s and '40s. For Barker, this was her first single after signing with the Vocalion label, and it became a national hit, leading to appearances with Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. The Barkers appeared at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1989, and in 1998, this appearance was released as the album Live at New Orleans Jazz Festival. Danny died in 1994 and Blue Lu in 1998.
Maria Muldaur brought new life to this song when she recorded it for her 1974 self-titled album, with the title altered to "Don't You Make Me High (Don't You Feel My Leg)." That same year, Muldaur had her big hit "Midnight At The Oasis," and when she rose to stardom, she stopped performing "Feel My Leg," as she didn't want to be known for her sexuality. In her interview with Rolling Stone that year, she explained: "It's a funky song, fun to do, but I had to stop doing it. That's my concession to avoid being typecast as a sexy singer, period. I dropped it after I saw a Marilyn Monroe TV special early this year. I saw her entertaining the troops in Korea, up there singing 'I Can't Give You Anything but Love' to acres and acres of horny GIs. Shelley Winters was on the show and she said something about how far Marilyn might have gone if she hadn't let herself get stuck with an image as a sex symbol who couldn't do anything else. That shook me. You can't rely on physical image alone. That's sure as shit gonna fade. The shape of your tits and butt ain't always going to be so good. I want to be a singer long after I'm not so hot to look at."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/blue-lu-barker/dont-you-feel-my-leg


Humble Pie - I'm Ready

 #Humble Pie #Steve Marriott #Peter Frampton #hard rock #blues rock #classic rock #British blues rock #ex-Small Faces #1960s #1970s

Humble Pie were an English rock band formed by Steve Marriott in Essex during 1969. They are known as one of the late 1960s' first supergroups and found success on both sides of the Atlantic with such songs as "Black Coffee", "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Natural Born Bugie". The original band line-up featured lead vocalist and guitarist Steve Marriott from Small Faces, vocalist and guitarist Peter Frampton from The Herd, former Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley and a 17-year-old drummer, Jerry Shirley, from The Apostolic Intervention.

1969–1970: Humble Pie Formation and Chart Success
In January 1969 Steve Marriott, having just left Small Faces, got together with Greg Ridley, Peter Frampton and Jerry Shirley. Marriott had brought together Shirley and Ridley as a possible band for Frampton, then ended up joining the band himself. They chose the name Humble Pie and were signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's record label Immediate Records. Their debut album, As Safe as Yesterday Is, was released in August, 1969, along with the single, "Natural Born Bugie", which reached No. 4 hit in the UK Singles Chart; the album peaked at No. 16 in the UK album charts. As Safe as Yesterday Is was one of the first albums to be described by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine. Their second album, Town and Country released in the UK during 1969 while the band was away on it’s first tour of the US. This album featured a more acoustic sound and songs written by all four members. Humble Pie concerts at this time featured an acoustic set, with a radical re-working of Graham Gouldman's "For Your Love" as its centrepiece followed by an electric set. Recent tape archives show that the band recorded around 30 songs in its first nine months of existence, many of which remained unreleased for decades, including an interpretation of Henry Glover's "Drown in My Own Tears".

1970–1971: Humble Pie Early Success
During 1970, Humble Pie switched to A&M Records and Dee Anthony became their manager. Anthony was focused on the US market and discarded the acoustic set, instigating a more raucous sound with Marriott as the front man. The group's first album for A&M, Humble Pie, was released later that year and alternated between progressive rock and hard rock. A single, "Big Black Dog", was released to coincide with the album and failed to chart, however the band was becoming known for popular live rock shows in the US.
It was during this period that Peter Frampton acquired his famed "Phenix" guitar, the black 1954 Les Paul Custom which became his signature instrument and his favourite guitar for the next decade. Humble Pie was playing a run of shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in early December 1970, and during the first show Frampton was plagued by sound problems with his then-current guitar, a semi-acoustic Gibson 335, which was prone to unwanted feedback at higher volumes. After the show he was approached by fan and musician Mark Mariana, who loaned him a modified 1954 Gibson Les Paul, and by the end of the second show Frampton had become so enamoured of the guitar that he offered to buy it on the spot, but Mariana refused payment. Frampton played it almost exclusively for the next ten years. It was featured on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive and was thought to have been destroyed in 1980 when a plane carrying Frampton's stage equipment crashed in Venezuela during a South American tour, killing the crew, but with the guitar in fact surviving the accident with some minor damage. It was eventually returned to Frampton in 2011.
On 9 July 1971, Humble Pie opened for Grand Funk Railroad at their historical Shea Stadium concert, an event that broke the Beatles record for fastest selling stadium concert, to that date. Also in 1971 Humble Pie released their most successful record to date, Rock On, as well as a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled Performance Rockin' the Fillmore. The live album reached No. 21 on the US Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA. "I Don't Need No Doctor" was a FM radio hit in the US peaking at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100, propelling the album up the charts. But Frampton left the band by the time the album was released and went on to enjoy success as a solo artist.

1972–1975: Clem Clempson, The Blackberries and Further Success
Frampton was replaced by Clem Clempson and Humble Pie moved towards a harder sound emphasising Marriott's blues and soul roots. Their first record with Clempson, Smokin', was released in 1972, along with two singles "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "30 Days in the Hole" (the latter of which became one of their best-known efforts). It was the band's most commercially successful record, and reached No. 6 on the US charts, helped by a busy touring schedule. After the success of Smokin' the band's record label A&M released Humble Pie's first two Immediate albums in one double album, as Lost and Found.
Looking for a more authentic R&B sound, Marriott hired three female backing vocalists, The Blackberries. The trio consisted of Venetta Fields, Clydie King and Sherlie Matthews who was later replaced by Billie Barnum. They had performed with Ike and Tina Turner as The Ikettes and with Ray Charles as The Raelettes. This new line-up included Sidney George on saxophone for the recording of Eat It, a double album released in 1973 made up of Marriott originals (some acoustic), R&B numbers, and a Humble Pie concert recorded in Glasgow. The album peaked at No. 13 in the US charts. Thunderbox was released in 1974, and Street Rats a year later. In 1975, Humble Pie conducted their Goodbye Pie Tour before disbanding.

From: https://www.ronnielane.com/steve-marriott-and-humble-pie.html

Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different

 #Betty Davis #funk #R&B #soul #funk rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: She was an artist ahead of her time. From her brief moment in the limelight to her decades of living as a recluse until her death in 2022, Betty Davis was a beautiful enigma. A drop-dead gorgeous model (and one of the first Black models to be featured in Glamour and Seventeen), Betty ran in crowds with Jimi Hendrix and was briefly married to Miles Davis (not to mention she played a large part in his stylistic radicalization). Her demure demeanor in life starkly contrasted with her onstage persona which oozed raw feminist liberation, a truly original punk-funk provocateur in her silver go-go boots and signature afro. One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing, musical magic of Janelle Monáe, OutKast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or Madonna without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music. Yet somehow, Ms. Davis’s unique story, still widely unknown, is unlike any other in popular music.
Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late 60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix — personally inspiring the classic album Bitches Brew. But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time, as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first but also penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything, but that didn't fly with Betty and her DIY ethos. Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.
In 1973, Davis would finally kick off her cosmic career with an amazingly progressive hard funk, sweet soul, self-titled debut. Betty Davis showcased her fiercely unique talent with such gems as “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up” and “Game Is My Middle Name.” The album was recorded with Sly & The Family Stone’s rhythm section, sharply produced by Sly Stone drummer Greg Errico, and featured backing vocals from Sylvester and The Pointer Sisters. Her 1974 sophomore album They Say I’m Different features a worthy-of-framing futuristic cover challenging David Bowie’s science fiction funk with real rocking soul-fire, kicked off with the savagely sexual “Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him”. Her follow-up is full of classic cuts like “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” and the hilarious, hard, deep funk of “He Was A Big Freak.” Betty Davis was riding high in the 70s. A new record label, a series of high-profile relationships, and intensely sexualized live performances made her a rising star. It seemed like everything was aligned to take the music world by storm. So Betty and band got back into the studio where she would act as writer, producer, and performer, creating her definitive release–Nasty Gal. Her entire catalog has now been lovingly remastered from the original tapes by Light in the Attic to sound as ferocious and revolutionary as they did when they first sprung on an unsuspecting world in the early 70s.  From: https://lightintheattic.net/collections/betty-davis

Spooky Tooth - Musikladen 1973

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Part 2

#Spooky Tooth #Gary Wright #Mike Harrison #Mick Jones #hard rock #blues rock #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #classic rock #British R&B #1960s #1970s #live music video

Spooky Tooth were an incredibly proficient gaggle of musicians whose individual talents were often greater than the sum of the band — when they were good, they were brilliant, but when they were okay, well they were just okay. The original line-up included two powerful keyboard-playing lead singers Gary Wright and Mike Harrison, a brilliant guitarist in Luther Grosvenor (who became equally famous as Ariel Bender with Mott the Hoople), bassist Greg Ridley (who was a founding member of Humble Pie with The Small Faces’ Steve Marriott) and drummer Mike Kellie (a future member of The Only Ones). Later, the line-up included Mick Jones who (of course) went onto world domination with Foreigner — yeah, I know, but somebody had to do it. 
Originally tinged with psychedelia and early prog rock, Spooky Tooth’s musical focus was shaped by the songwriting talent of Gary Wright over the first two albums — It’s All About (1968) and Spooky Two (1969). But this nascent potential was literally destroyed by the strange collaboration with electronic wizard Pierre Henry for their third album Ceremony (1969), which Wright claims ended the band’s career: “Then we did a project that wasn’t our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, “You know this is his album, not our album. We’ll play on it just like musicians.” And then when the album was finished, they said, ‘Oh no no — it’s great. We’re gonna release this as your next album.’ We said, ‘You can’t do that. It doesn’t have anything to do with the direction of Spooky Two and it will ruin our career.’ And that’s exactly what happened.” Devastated, Wright temporarily quit, and Spooky Tooth’s next album The Last Puff (1970) - billed as Spooky Tooth featuring Mike Harrison - was a rather mixed bag of covers, though it did contain the greatest ever Beatles cover “I Am The Walrus.” 
Then Grosvenor and Kellie quit, Jones joined and Wright returned to the fold penning nearly all of the songs for their bizarrely titled fifth album You Broke My Heart So…I Busted Your Jaw (1973).  Next came Witness, which was Harrison’s last album with the band, before the arrival of the more poppy The Mirror (1974), which was generally well received.  The band split — Jones went onto greater success, while Wright released his million-selling solo album Dream Weaver. Spooky Tooth deserve attention not just because of the quality of their disparate players, but also because of the quality of their early and late music — which can partly be seen in these “lost broadcasts” where Spooky Tooth perform “The Weight” on Beat Club in 1968, followed by “Old As I Was Born,” two versions of “Cotton Growing Man,” “Waiting For The Wind” and two versions of “Moriah” for Musikladen in 1973.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/spooky_tooth_the_lost_broadcasts

Genesis - Pop Shop - Belgian TV 1972

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Part 2

 #Genesis #Peter Gabriel #Phil Collins #Steve Hackett #progressive rock #art rock #symphonic prog #theatrical rock #1970s #music video

In the early 1970s, legendary prog-rock band Genesis were at perhaps the first pivotal moment in the band’s long and storied career. The group — consisting at the time of core members vocalist Peter Gabriel, bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks — had hired a new drummer named Phil Collins in 1970 after placing an ad in Melody Maker. The band would also bring on guitarist Steve Hackett a year later. But adding future rock stars didn’t guarantee immediate success. Genesis struggled to gain footing in their native UK and in 1971 played their first overseas gigs in Belgium. Around the same time, Genesis began work on their third studio album, Nursery Cryme, which came out in November 1971. But the band’s penchant for experimentation didn’t sit well with UK crowds. Mainland Europe, however, was more receptive and the album did well in places like Italy where Genesis would subsequently tour to enthusiastic audiences. During the touring around Nursery Cryme, the band also returned to Belgium where they performed for a television program called Pop Shop on March 20, 1972. For their Pop Shop performance, Genesis offered up three songs from Nursery Cryme, the experimental epics — at over eight minutes — “The Fountain Of Salmacis,” “The Musical Box” and “The Return Of The Giant Hogweed.” “Twilight Alehouse” — which would later appear as the B-side to the band’s first charting single, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” — fit into the second slot in the band’s four-song set.  From: https://www.jambase.com/article/genesis-pop-shop-1972

It’s been 40 years since Genesis recorded “Nursery Cryme,”, the album that cemented the early Genesis sound, and one considered by many to be among the greatest artistic achievements of progressive rock’s golden era. Along with contemporaries Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis pushed the boundaries of rock music both lyrically and instrumentally. All of the essential elements of what has since come to be known as “prog” were present on “Nursery Cryme”: fantastic, often bizarre lyrics; long, thematic songs; an obvious classical influence and departure from blues-based traditions; and unparalleled musical virtuosity.
The band married some of the heaviest jams of the day to acoustic, pastoral passages to create a tapestry of light and shade, which confused some American audiences at first, says guitarist Steve Hackett. “Our idea of a guitar-based tune usually meant that the 12-string [acoustics] carried it,” he says. “Often we would have three 12-string guitars playing at once — Mike, Tony and me — which created a sound like a harpsichord, and you couldn’t really pin down what you were hearing. Mike Rutherford was very into Joni Mitchell at the time, which also influenced our acoustic side. Unfortunately, we tended to get shouted down in America on our first tours during some of our quieter moments, because people wanted to hear boogie music.”
Members of Genesis drew their inspiration from classical and folk music as much as rock and blues, says Hackett, who began his musical journey as a blues harmonica player. “I grew up listening to the blues and Bach, and I never thought that they would meet and create a third thing,” he says. “The two styles seemed to be at odds with each other.” Although it’s hard to hear much overt blues influence in early Genesis, Hackett points out that most of the innovation sonically and musically on the electric guitar in the 1960s and early 1970s came straight out of the blues. Even the most eclectic rock guitar heroes of the day were still firmly rooted in the blues. The music of Genesis—and Hackett’s guitar playing in particular—offered an enticing alternative for rock fans who were becoming bored with standard beats and I-IV-V chord progressions. “Nursery Cryme” explored odd time signatures, modal compositions, and introduced a new technique to rock music that would redefine electric guitar playing in the next decade: two-handed tapping.
“I came upon the tapping technique when I was trying to play Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue,” says Hackett. “I realized that I couldn’t play it the way I wanted to hear it using standard technique, so I started tapping onto the fretboard with my right hand. I used that technique all over “Nursery Cryme including parts of ‘The Musical Box’ and ‘The Return of the Giant Hogweed.’” Tony Banks sometimes harmonized Hackett’s legato lead guitar lines on the keyboard for dramatic effect, often using a distorted amplifier or fuzz box to achieve a similar sound. “We had a guitarist who was trying to sound like a keyboard player and a keyboard player who was very good at sounding like a guitarist,” Hackett observes.
Part of the reason that the English progressive rock bands of the early 1970s drew from such varied influences was the wide variety of music broadcast on British radio prior to the deregulation of the airwaves. “Radio was in very different shape when we were young, and I think that that helped to color the progressive music that followed,” says Hackett. “Today, many stations only play one style of music, and I suspect the people who grow up listening to this stuff may be subject to less-wide musical tastes than the ones that we had while developing our musical base. We were listening to blues, rock and jazz from America, and we were also hearing our European roots, all on the same station.”
An essential ingredient in the Genesis sound that was shared by other progressive rock bands is the use of the Mellotron, an electro-mechanical ancestor of the modern synthesizer, to achieve an orchestral sound. “We weren’t trying to sound classical, but the spooky, eerie quality of the Mellotron flutes and violins became a big part of our sound,” says Hackett. “I was in love with the sound of it for a very long time — although they were incredibly temperamental and took four men to lift, like pallbearers.” Gabriel also occasionally played flute with the band, adding yet another dimension to the sound.
Faux harpsichords and orchestras aside, however, there are musical passages on “Nursery Cryme” (e.g., the screaming guitar in the middle section of “The Musical Box”) that are as prototypically heavy metal as anything by Sabbath, Zeppelin or Deep Purple. To achieve those heavy guitar sounds, Hackett used his trusty Les Paul Custom through a Hiwatt stack with various fuzz boxes and an octave divider. He also used a volume pedal to precisely control the dynamics of his guitar to fit the album’s many moods. “Sometimes I’d be playing distorted rock guitar weaving through these delicate textures, so I had to play very quietly,” says Hackett. “I’d be playing pastoral rock guitar, if that’s not an oxymoron. Often I had to play almost like a reed instrument. At times, I even tried to sound like a synthesizer or like a voice.”
The complex music of Genesis required a team player approach from Hackett, which usually led him far afield of pure bombast. “With the core team of Mike, Phil and Tony forming the nucleus of the sound and turning out those dense, very beautiful textures, it was often difficult to be able to impose anything on the music that was relevant,” says Hackett. “So sometimes I’d beef up the bass line; other times I would highlight part of what was going on with the piano. I think that approach helped to create interesting textures, and it did enrich the sound. I was trying to think like a producer or an arranger, which has little to do with guitar heroics. I was very concerned with subtlety, perhaps more than I am today.”
Lyrically, Genesis usually shied away from “the mating ritual,” as Hackett dryly puts it, in favor of fairy tales and mythology — a direct contrast to the approach that the Rolling Stones and other English groups were taking at the time. Some critics complained that the band’s lyrical approach felt more like research than soul-searching. “It’s not that we weren’t writing romantic music,” says Hackett. “It was just romantic in a different way — we were romancing something else. Our lyrics were often third-hand and not based on personal experience, which is quite typical of the progressive approach. That’s not the approach I’ve taken post-Genesis — personal experience is much more in evidence — but these were early days, and we took a lot from literature.”
The “progressive rock” label did not exist at the time, Hackett points out, and the emerging style was often tagged “art rock” or “theatrical rock.” Indeed, Genesis was one of the first groups to combine rock and theater, a strategy that made the band’s surreal lyrics easier for audiences to digest. “Once we got our own light show and stage set and took control of the visual aspect of our performances, Peter decided that he wanted to be the literal depiction of the action,” says Hackett.
Gabriel’s thespian talents helped differentiate Genesis from the other prog acts of the day, and he used masks and bizarre costumes to bring the songs to life. “Peter had always approached lyrics rather like an actor, so it was a natural evolution,” says Hackett. “But it wasn’t a decision he ran through the band in committee. He just showed up one night and that’s the way it was on stage.” Audiences loved it, or at least paid attention. “When we were starting out, often we would be second or third on the bill, and people would be milling about, ignoring us, going to the bar,” says Hackett. “That changed as the show became more theatrical, with Peter acting out the parts.”
“Foxtrot,” the follow-up to “Nursery Cryme,” continued in the same musical vein and generated better sales as Genesis started to make a name for itself in the UK. By 1973’s “Selling England by the Pound,” the group had earned itself some high-profile fans. Hackett describes an enthusiastic Peter Gabriel bouncing into the rehearsal room after hearing that John Lennon had mentioned in an interview that he “loved” the new Genesis album. “We were incredibly proud of that,” says Hackett. “At a time when we could still hardly get a gig in the States, we had a good review from a great man. We thought, ‘Wow, maybe we’re good.’”
In hindsight, the group may have reached its creative zenith by 1973. “Selling England,” most critics agree, perfected the blueprint that “Nursery Cryme” had established two years earlier. The musicians were at the top of their game, and compositions flowed easily despite the stylistic shifts and challenging subject matter. “A song like ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’ really runs the gamut stylistically,” says Hackett. “It goes from a Scottish Plainsong to English hymnal to jazz fusion to something we used to call ‘Disney,’ or more of a tone poem approach.” Although Genesis toured relentlessly, the band was not focused on success as an end game in its early years. “Our concern was quality, and we had a lot of support from our management and record company behind the premise that if we aimed for excellence, success would follow as natural consequence,” Hackett explains.
One common misconception about early Genesis is that Gabriel wrote all of the lyrics. This was not the case until his last album with the group, 1975’s “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.” “We all contributed lyrically, until Peter decided that he wanted to write all the words he would sing, and that’s understandable — things often tend to sound best when a singer is singing his own lyrics,” says Hackett. “I was quite happy to concentrate on being the guitarist. You have to be very flexible if you’re in a band, especially when it’s a band of writers; you’ve got to be prepared to wear certain hats and take the hats off, from time to time, to make room for someone else.”
“Lamb Lies Down” also marked a major change in the group’s sound, taking Genesis out of the English countryside and into more modern, chaotic, urban imagery. “It was a little closer to mainstream rock, and I was concerned about how that would go over in America — you know, taking New York to the New Yorkers,” Hackett recalls. He needn’t have worried, as the album still stands as one of the group’s most critically acclaimed works. “Of course, we had our equipment stolen and ransomed at the beginning of our U.S. tour in true New York fashion,” Hackett quips. “We had to fight for it every step of the way.”
Although Hackett would stay on to record two more excellent albums with Genesis, the now-classic “Trick of the Tail” and “Wind and Wuthering,” the band’s sound changed as Collins ably carved out his identity as lead vocalist. “Genesis spanned a lot of eras, and as the lineup changed, the sound went in an increasingly commercial direction,” says Hackett. “The earlier stuff was more idealistic, I feel, in that what we were trying to do was original music — and that’s what seems to turn on musicians the most. It’s been 40 years, and those early albums keep selling. I’m happy to have been a part of that history.”  From: https://www.goldminemag.com/features/the-classic-era-of-genesis-examined-1971-1975

 

Graham Nash - I Used To Be A King

 #Graham Nash #ex-CSNY #ex-The Hollies #folk rock #country rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

Songs for Beginners is Graham Nash's solo debut apart from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Released in 1971, it is a collection of songs that reflect change, transition, and starting over. The set was recorded in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the immediate aftermath of Nash's traumatic breakup with Joni Mitchell. Unlike the colorful dynamism of Stephen Stills' eponymous debut recording, or the acid-drenched cosmic cowboy spaciness of David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, Nash's album is by contrast a much more humble and direct offering. It is a true, mostly introspective songwriter's album full of beautifully performed and wonderfully recorded songs that reflect transition, movement, the desire to look backward and forward simultaneously. Like the aforementioned offering, this one is star-studded in its choice of players and singers: Crosby, Chris Ethridge, Jerry Garcia, Rita Coolidge, Clydie King, Venetta Fields, Dave Mason, Neil Young (under the pseudonym "Joe Yankee"), David Lindley, Bobby Keys, Phil Lesh, Dallas Taylor, and drummer John Barbata reflect some of the personnel on this heady yet humble session. The album is bookended by two of Nash's best-known tunes, the anthemic "Military Madness" that remains timeless in the 21st century, and "Chicago," that doesn't. That said, they are among the weakest songs here -- which reveals what a solid collection it is. Unlike many recordings birthed from personal angst, Nash's engages in no self pity; instead, he focuses on the craft of songwriting itself. Despite its personal darkness, "Better Days," with its swirling piano and pronounced bassline, is also an actual paean to self-determination and perseverance, the logic being that there were better days in the past, so there must be better ones in the future as well. "I Used to Be a King," with Garcia on a gorgeous pedal steel and Lesh on bass, is a direct, mature response to "King Midas in Reverse," a song Nash wrote and recorded with the Hollies. "Simple Man," with its sparse melody and strings and a fine backing vocal from Coolidge, was written on the afternoon of the breakup with Mitchell. The violin-cello backdrop to Nash's piano is particularly effective and makes this one of his most memorable songs. The parlor room country waltz that commences "Man in the Mirror," features Garcia's steel, Young's piano, ex-Flying Burrito Brother Ethridge, and drummer Barbata; it shifts keys, tempo, and feel about a third of the way in with a very long bridge that transforms the song's sentiment as well. Ultimately, Songs for Beginners is the strongest of Nash's solo efforts (outside of his work with Crosby).  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/songs-for-beginners-mw0000197377

Graham Nash & Joni Mitchell

Cold Blood - Lo and Behold

 #Cold Blood #Lydia Pense #blue-eyed soul #funk rock #R&B #East Bay grease #1960s #1970s

Cold Blood is a long-standing soul-rock-jazz band founded by Larry Field in 1968 and originally based in the San Francisco East Bay area. They have also gone by the name "Lydia Pense and Cold Blood" due to the popularity of their lead singer, Lydia Pense. The band first came to prominence in 1969 when rock impresario Bill Graham signed them after an audition and they played the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Pense has been compared to Janis Joplin, and it was Joplin who recommended the audition to Graham. The band has often been compared to another long-standing popular Northern California group, "Tower of Power", and like "Tower of Power" they were rare in that they featured a horn section in addition to guitar, bass and drums. The "Tower of Power" horn players have performed with "Cold Blood" on a regular basis since the early 1970s. Skip Mesquite and Mic Gillette have been members of both "Tower Of Power" and "Cold Blood".Their fan base also overlaps with the "Sons of Champlin", although their musical styles are quite different. Their initial four albums, "Cold Blood", "Sisyphus", "First Taste of Sin" (produced by Donny Hathaway), and "Thriller" remain their best known work. The band disbanded in the late 1970s, reformed in the 1980s and stabilized with its current membership in the 1990s. Cold Blood continues to record and perform today, and some former band members such as Raul Matute (and some from "Tower of Power") appear on its most recent album.  From: https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/3705807

Along with Tower of Power, Cold Blood pioneered the Bay Area's brass heavy funk-rock sound, which came to be known as "East Bay Grease." After debuting at the Fillmore in 1969 and initially signing to Bill Graham's San Francisco Records label, they developed into one of the most popular high-energy bands in the Bay Area. Fronted by the proverbial little girl with a huge voice, Lydia Pense's powerful vocal chops were impossible to ignore, and despite frequent personnel changes within the band, Cold Blood always attracted inspired and creative musicians and remained a crack unit.
Cold Blood seemed to be overshadowed by Chicago, Blood Sweat And Tears, Tower Of Power, and other more commercially successful horn-fueled bands of the era, but their biggest curse was the critics and reviewers who were relentlessly comparing Lydia to Janis Joplin (who, in reality praised Lydia and the band, including their blistering cover of "Piece Of My Heart"). This, combined with questionable management, frequent personnel changes, and weak album distribution relegated the group to limited success. Cold Blood appeared at the Fillmores often and at many major concerts and festivals but remained most popular in the Bay Area.
Cold Blood's sixth album, Lydia Pense and Cold Blood, released during the bicentennial year of 1976, would be the group's last studio effort of the 1970s. Lydia settled into seclusion on the outskirts of Sonora for most of the 1980s, raising her daughter Danielle. As her daughter approached adulthood, Lydia again began pursuing music and by 1988 had recruited the musicians who would begin a new phase of Cold Blood's horn-driven rock and soul-drenched sound.
A live album titled Live Blood was issued in 2008, proving Cold Blood's appeal had not diminished. Featuring classic older songs as well as new material, this album proved to be what Cold Blood fans had long been waiting for: a sizzling live set that remained true to the pulsating horn-laced sound that defined the band, fronted by an incomparable singer with an astonishingly powerful voice.  From: https://yoshis.com/events/buy-tickets/lydia-pense-cold-blood-1/detail

UrIah Heep - I Wanna Be Free

 #Uriah Heep #hard rock #heavy metal #progressive rock #British prog metal #heavy prog #heavy blues rock #1970s

Uriah Heep. A misunderstood band in this country, a band who have found such success in the States and in Europe that they haven`t really had the time to correct their British image. They arrived in the 1969 to 1970 period which was remarkable for the rise of the “heavies” such as Purple and Sabbath and to many people`s minds they play loud, heavy music and that`s that. But the band today is far, far more musical than the band which recorded “Very `Eavy, Very `Umble”, back in 1969. Perhaps the man who governs the direction most is guitarist and singer Mick Box and the opportunity of a Talk In with him gave me the opportunity to discover exactly the genealogy behind both the band and the super-fast guitar style of the man.

Can you remember what was the very first music you ever heard?

Oh dear, hang on. Yes, the first thing that actually stuck in my brain was the Buddy Holly era. I don`t even remember a particular tune, just that whole thing. I was knocked out with the sound. I liked the way he sung and it was different to anything else. That was a stage I was going through when I used to stand in the front room miming with a tennis racket.

So you knew that it was a guitar that you wanted to learn to play?

Yes, most definitely, there was nothing else.

How long after that did you actually get your first guitar?

It must have been about a year after that I got this little ukelele `cos I thought it was a cheap guitar. I was a bit dumb. I knocked out a few little tunes on that which was fun and then I wanted to get the proper thing so I got a £12 10s guitar called a Telston, or something like that, and that was from the pawnbrokers.

So when you switched from Uke to proper guitar you had to learn some new chords?

Ukelele chords are like shortened guitar chords, you know chords with just two fingers and I got a few little books that showed me the chords and I picked up a few things from there. I thought well I`ve got to go further than this so I tried to learn songs from records. That didn`t work at all. I couldn`t get it to sound like the music at all so I started going to a guitar teacher. I went to him for about a couple of months and he was a bit of a con merchant. He used to give me things to play and I had to go away and learn to play the thing in a week. But within half an hour I could play it to him, it did help in as much as he showed me the basic formation of chords with tonic thirds and fifths and I suppose he was really helpful in just being someone to report to. After I got fed up with him I didn`t know who to turn to so I just used to plonk away at home and with my knowledge of chord formation I was able to build my own chords.

So you still couldn`t get anything from records?

No, but the first thing I eventually got from records actually shaped my whole technique. I tried to copy a record by Les Paul and Mary Ford. I didn`t know anything about recording at all, nothing. His whole sound is a speeded up guitar sound and he`d play, in rough terms, something at 16 r.p.m. and speed it up to 45 and then put it out as a record. I used to try and copy him at that speed and in actual fact I kept on plugging away at that record. I think it was “Nola,” and eventually, I got it at the right speed and so I got on into a fast technique thing. After that I started getting into jazz players like Tal Farlow and Barney Kessel. Well soon after this period I formed my own band. That was just a local band that I formed with guys I`d heard of from the same area. We played the local youth clubs for six bottles of coke and that sort of fee. I remember our first paid gig. I think we got ten bob. That was very much the front room rehearsal scene and it was really a good era.

The band was playing what sort of music?

I think it was just before the Stones happened and we were into Buddy Holly music and Elvis` stuff. Our lead singer could only sing rock so we bashed that out all night. I think I must have been about 13 at this time so we were pretty young. All the music like “Jailhouse Rock” and “Blue Suede Shoes” is based on the 12-bar format and that also gave us a chance to do a few lead breaks because you don`t have to think too heavily.

What did you call the band you had at that time?

We were called the Stalkers, and that was for both reasons because we wanted the women as well, you see.

How long did the Stalkers last?

It lasted a good few years because we started to get £15 gigs, and all that and we thought “amazing” and we were really pleased. We started playing the Marquee and that was really the big time for us and just before we made the Marquee we realised we needed a new vocalist because the other guy just wasn`t up to it and our drummer`s cousin was David Byron who`s our singer now and he suggested that this guy David might be suitable and that was the start of a partnership that has taken us right through `till now. The auditions we had at that time were so silly, we just said: “What do you know” and if he knew “Blue Suede Shoes”, we said: “OK sing it.” So we settled on David.

Where did the band go to from the Marquee?

From there we thought we wanted a change and David and myself wanted a change, we wanted to go professional. I was working as a clerk in an export office. I was determined to be professional.

It must have been a big decision.

David was a bit unsure because packing up and going pro meant that we were going to lose two members because they wanted to go through with their apprenticeships. We struggled a long while when we first went pro and we spent a year just writing songs together. It proved a lot harder than we thought to get the right musicians and we finally got Paul Newton who was in this band and we got in a drummer and we called ourselves Spice.

So this was in fact the beginning of the band that`s now Uriah Heep?

Yeah, we started doing all the clubs after a period of a year with no work.

How did you live through that year?

For the first six months I did things like potato picking, get up at six in the morning and worked all through the day and get about £2 a week for it. I washed down shop windows and signs, cut someone`s lawn, anything to get money going and get through a week. It was just a struggle for ourselves and in the end we ended up going on the dole for six months. They kept sending us for jobs and they`d tell us to go on the ninth for an interview and we`d turn up on the 19th and swear that we`d seen a one in front of the nine on the piece of paper with the instructions on it and of course they would immediately consider us unsuitable. I also used to go down the dole in bizarre clothes like pyjamas and jumpers with huge holes in the sleeves and I`d do anything not to get a job. I did that for six months and in the end I couldn`t keep a straight face. We eventually got a drummer called Alex Napier in on drums and we started doing some clubs and being picked up by a few agents. A guy who helped us out a lot was Neil Warnock. He worked for an agency called Southbank and he managed us for a while.

What sort of material was Spice doing?

Well to get work in those days you couldn`t do what you wanted to. You had to remember that people wanted to hear certain things and you just had to play them. We tried to get away from playing all the run of the mill stuff and we used to dig out old Joe Tex things and numbers like that which went down very well. We never did the top twenty stuff, we used to spend hours in record shops digging out obscure numbers to play. I remember finding Donnie Elbert`s “Little Bit Of Leather” and songs like that.

Did you put any soul in the act at that time?

Well soul was the thing at that time and we used to do some as a kind of a mickey take thing with dance routines. Then we started to get into an improvisation kick and we started to play our own numbers on stage.

I remember that it was difficult for a band to play their own numbers on stage at that time?

Yeah it was murder. We got to a point where we were digging up all these old numbers and we thought we could write numbers just as good. At that time we couldn`t actually, but at least we were attempting it. So we started sticking in a few originals and they seemed to be getting the same reaction so we gained a little confidence.

About what year would this have been?

I think it was about 1967. It was during that year that we started doing our own numbers on stage and we did more and more of them until the whole set was just our own numbers.

What sort of clubs were you doing then?

We were doing the Marquee, college dates, the Red Lions, the Wake Arms, Epping, this sort of thing.

This was about the time of the start of the underground movement?

Yes very much so, I think we were one of the first bands to get a little bit indulgent in as much as I used to go and do a guitar solo for 15 minutes on stage with the rest of the band going off and at that stage nobody around was doing that. I think we were carving our own little niche then but we kept to the format that we used with this band that you can afford to be really heavy and exciting but still retain lot of harmony and melody with it and that`s what we were trying to do then. We`re still doing that. On stage five of us sing and normally with all that power going on you get just one guy out front who`s singing.

How long did Spice last under that name?

It ended at the end of 1969. Gerry Bron came to see us working at the Blues Loft, High Wycombe, and we`d heard that Gerry was a good straight manager so we`d invited him to come down. He thought we had it all there potentially, musically and so on but he knew there was something missing. So did we but we didn`t know what, we didn`t know where to turn. So he took us under his wing, he didn`t sign us or anything and he gave us a few pilot gigs to see if we were good enough, whether we`d turn up on time, if we were reliable or if we were temperamental. So he tried us out for a long while and then he slung us in the studio with a couple of our own numbers, just to try and find out our direction. We`d never been in the studio before except for a few demo sessions and we went in and what we came out with wasn`t very impressive at all – in fact, we still listen to the tape we made on that session now, just for a laugh. Gerry was knocked out with the enthusiasm and the will to get on and he stuck with us. Then we started to record our first album.

Was this the album that eventually came out as “Very `Eavy.”?

Yeah and it was during that we discovered what the missing link was we needed a keyboard player, and another voice. Our bass player used to play with a band called the Gods and another ex-God was Ken Hensley who was playing at that time with a band called Toe Fat. We approached Kenny and he agreed to come down to Hanwell Community centre and have a blow. We just played for a while and we realised it was going to work. In addition to playing keyboards he could also play guitar, write songs and sing and this was just what we needed. So we started recording that band.

The album came out a long while after you recorded it didn`t it?

Yeah, that was the drag, because when that album came out it was obsolete for the band because we`d moved so fast we were already into other material.

It did a lot of good for you that album, though, didn`t it?

It did more good for us on the Continent actually, it was OK here, but they really picked up on it.

When was the period that the band actually started to break?

We got the Uriah Heep name from Gerry. The band came to him in the centenary year of Dicken`s death or something and we picked up on a bit of publicity. We`d been thinking of all different names for the band like your Corrugated Dandruff and Clockwork Doughnut and it was nice to find a name that had a bit of a story behind it. We got all that dealt with and we were doing some pilot gigs in England getting new gear worked in and then we were slung over to be on a festival in Hamburg in Germany and we were first on the bill. We steamed in there and they gave us an ovation and they wanted an encore which wasn`t bad for a band there for the first time. There were a lot of influential promoters backstage who all saw it and they started booking us on German tours and things, which was beautiful and the Germans really started plugging for us. In six months we were over there six times on various tours. The album started going in the charts; it snowballed for us there.

How did the band come to go to the States?

Well we were very successful in Germany and it was slowly happening here, it was very slow but it was still going. We were having a lot of bad press which may have been right or may have been wrong. I don`t know, but it never concerned us that much because we were still going along to gigs and each time we went we got bigger crowds and we always got encores. We just hoped that the press thing would swing round which luckily it has done. We thought, States, OK. Let`s go there. We went over there as a support band playing 30 or 45 minutes just to get experience and it`s the first time we`d ever played before 20,000 people. It was like the Blues Loft, High Wycombe to the Los Angeles Forum, it was ridiculous.

What was the States audience reaction like?

It was interesting, it wasn`t brilliant but it was interesting. Three Dog Night wasn`t exactly our crowd. At the end of the tour we found there was enough reaction to go back and do another tour and then we toured with Deep Purple and Buddy Miles which really broke us out there.

Do you enjoy playing the States more than anywhere else?

I enjoy playing there but there`s no where like home, is there? Up the M1, play the gigs and then you can go home to your own bed.

From: https://geirmykl.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/article-about-mick-box-uriah-heep-from-sounds-november-25-1972/

The O'Jays - For the Love of Money

 #The O'Jays #soul #R&B #Philadelphia sound #progressive soul #funk #1970s

The O'Jays were one of Philadelphia soul's most popular and long-lived outfits, rivaled only by the Spinners as soul's greatest vocal group of the '70s. In their prime, the O'Jays' recordings epitomized the Philly soul sound: smooth, rich harmonies backed by elaborate arrangements, lush strings, and a touch of contemporary funk. They worked extensively with the legendary production/songwriting team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, becoming the flagship artist of the duo's Philadelphia International label. The O'Jays were equally at home singing sweet love ballads or uptempo dance tunes, the latter of which were often mouthpieces for Gamble & Huff's social concerns. Although the O'Jays couldn't sustain their widespread popularity in the post-disco age, they have continued to record steadily all the way up to the present day, modifying their production to keep up with the times. The O'Jays were formed in 1958 in Canton, OH, where all five original members -- Eddie Levert, Walter Williams, William Powell, Bill Isles, and Bobby Massey -- attended McKinley High School. Inspired to start a singing group after seeing a performance by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, they first called themselves the Triumphs, then switched to the Mascots in 1960. The Mascots made their recording debut in 1961 with the single "Miracles," issued on the Cincinnati-based King label. It earned them a fan in the influential Cleveland DJ Eddie O'Jay, who gave them some airplay and career advice; in turn, the group renamed itself the O'Jays in 1963, after having recorded for Apollo Records with producer Don Davis. Under their new name, the O'Jays signed with Imperial and hooked up with producer H.B. Barnum, who would helm their first charting single, 1963's "Lonely Drifter," plus several more singles that followed. Isles left the group in 1965 and was not replaced, leaving them a quartet; late in the year, they released their first-ever album, Comin' Through. In 1967, the O'Jays left Imperial for Bell, where they landed their first Top Ten single on the R&B charts, "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow (Than I Was Today)." Discouraged by the difficulty of following that success, the group members considered throwing in the towel until they met Gamble & Huff -- then working as a production team for the Neptune label -- in 1968. Gamble & Huff took an interest in the group, and they recorded several successful R&B singles together; however, Neptune folded in 1971, leaving the O'Jays in limbo, and Massey decided to exit the group. Fortunately, Gamble & Huff formed their own label, Philadelphia International, and made the O'Jays -- now a trio -- one of their first signings. The O'Jays' label debut, Back Stabbers, released in 1972, became a classic landmark of Philly soul, and finally made them stars.  From: https://www.iheart.com/artist/the-ojays-34155/

Renaissance - BBC Sight & Sound In Concert 1977

Part 1

 Part 2

 #Renaissance #Annie Haslam #progressive rock #British progressive rock #symphonic prog #classical #orchestral #1970s #live music video

Repertoire Records has previously dug out the De Lane Studios and Academy of Music concerts of Renaissance for official release. In comparison, this 'Live at the BBC Sight & Sound' package includes material that fans are well acquainted with. It draws from the previous BBC Sessions CD and adds, as the main attraction, video of the concert performed by Renaissance at the Hippodrome, London in 1977 as part of the Sight & Sound in Concert series.
I was excited as this was the only color footage taken from a live performance given by the band in the 70s. And it is a beautifully shot concert, way ahead of all of the band's DVDs including the recent ones in that aspect, covering the band from a whole variety of angles. However, when I saw the nervous look on Annie Haslam's face in the first close up shot in the concert as they perform Carpet of the Sun, I began to have misgivings. After a somewhat glaring misstep (hard to be too harsh when somebody's got a voice like that) towards the end of that song, her confidence seems to drop even more and she wears a kind of anxious and downcast look through the rest of the show, for the most part. The wide variety of giggles and grins sported by her in shows over the years attest to how unusual it is for her to be that aloof while performing. I didn't mind the show on the whole but I was also not overwhelmed and just said to myself that you can't have it all. Maybe best quality audio and video had to come at the (slight) expense of musical quality and show(woman)ship.
So I decided to play the audio CD version of the concert, just to see if the audio was better on it as compared to the DVD (it was). And I began to get a different impression of the concert, indeed of Annie's singing. On video, she looks tentative, perhaps weighed down by her perfectionist streak and perhaps also battling a throat that was protesting the workload she had imposed on it. But, on audio, I heard beautiful, confident and expressive renditions, as always. Yes, with those little missteps hither and thither, but it is much harder to notice when the sheer quality of her vocal delivery overwhelms you.
Turns out the Sight & Sound concert is another fine example of Annie's quiet resilience. Perhaps she may have been embattled by inner demons and may have completely abdicated the role of frontperson for this show to the more composed Jon Camp but she was still striving to give her best song after song and did not disappoint the eager fans who had turned up to watch the show. I could finally put in perspective the enthusiastic cheering from the crowd after every song. No, it is not that they were forgiving. It is that she and the band as such had truly mounted a wonderful show, in spite of the somewhat scripted quality these Sight & Sound shows have compared to less high profile performances by Renaissance (or other bands). My pick would be Ocean Gypsy but don't miss John Tout's wonderful piano work on Mother Russia. There are some fine, subtle variations in there that he's sneaked in unobtrusively without altering the spirit of the composition.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=54564

 
Renaissance's history actually begins in 1969, when - after the breakup of the Yardbirds and a short stint as the acoustic group Together - drummer Jim McCarty and guitarist/vocalist Keith Relf were joined by classically-trained pianist John Hawken who had earlier played with The Nashville Teens, bassist Louis Cennamo and Keith's sister, vocalist Jane Relf. Actually, the original lineup started falling apart prior to the second album's completion, giving rise to personnel and style changes over the next year before reaching a stable lineup. McCarty hated to fly and left the band in 1970 when they were about to embark on a European tour; Keith Relf and Louis Cennamo left shortly after to pursue a heavier style, eventually forming Armageddon. Jane Relf quit after the tour completed in the fall of 1970 and was replaced by American female vocalist, Binky Cullom from late October to December 1970. John Hawken, dissatisfied with the new vocalist among other reasons, left to join Spooky Tooth and was replaced by keyboard player John Tout around the same time. Hawken later joined The Strawbs in 1973-1974 Louis Cennamo left to join Colosseum and played on the Daughter Of Time album.
Annie Haslam, a brilliant young singer with formal classical vocal training, a beautiful five-octave range and a vivacious personality, answered the Melody Maker advert and got an audition with the band where she met founding members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty. The lineup of Annie Haslam, John Tout, Terry Crowe, Neil Korner, Terry Slade and Michael Dunford toured Europe extensively leading to further personal and acoustic transitions. Danny McCullough, Frank Farrell and John Wetton each took their turn at bass during the period. Keith Relf and Jim McCarty were still very much involved in the direction of the band behind the scenes and while Relf eventually became disinterested, McCarty remained involved until 1973.
Renaissance are in important band in progressive rock - one which far outranks the bands actual sales in the peak years or their fame at the time. The band seemlessly blended classical, rock and folk in a symphonic progressive style that is almost at the center of this genre's description. Anne Haslam was one of the first females to front a progressive rock band and in many ways serves as the reference point for both a style of music and a description for other female vocalists in the progressive genre. Starting with the band's 2nd release with Haslam, Prologue, and running though 1975's Scheherazade and including large portions of the albums released surrounding this period, Renaissance delivered some of the most respected and fresh progressive rock in the classic period of the 70's.  Their live release from Carnegie Hall is one of the cleanest performances and records among the 'live' collections of the era.  Songs such as Ocean Gypsy, Ashes are Burning, Mother Russia and Scheherazade are often cited as classics of the genre.
Starting in the late 70's and early 80's, as the influence of directed radio grew, the band found it hard to get noticed and slowly migrated to a more conventional pop/rock sound leading to the bands effective closing the door by the mid-1980's. Meanwhile, in 1977, original members Jane Relf, Jim McCarty, Louis Cennamo, and John Hawken would go on to form a band and record under the name Illusion. Haslam has gone on to record a number of solo works of varying styles including progressive ones, and the band have reformed in various combinations in the years following including a kind of 'renaissance' (pun intended) in the 2000's with new music and live performances to the delight of new and long time fans.  From: https://www.proggnosis.com/Artist/247

 

Mu - Blue Jay Blue

 #Mu #Merrell Fankhauser #psychedelic rock #folk rock #psychedelic folk rock #1960s #1970s

In 1969, Merrell Fankhauser and Jeff Cotton formed MU together with Fankhauser's old bandmates from the mid sixties group Merrell and The Exiles. Cotton (aka Antennae Jimmy Semens) had left Captain Beefheart with three broken ribs after the exhausting experience of recording Trout Mask Replica. Their only album, Mu, was released 1971. After a couple of singles on their own Mu Records, they moved to Maui, Hawaii, in 1973. Larry Willey did not want to move, and Jeff Parker replaced him. In January 1974, they began work on their next album (The Last Album), but broke up before it was released when Cotton and Wimer left to study religion.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/mu

Well recorded psychedelic avant-prog blues record that actually doesn't work like blues at all. With a clean and full sound and songs made of the strangest dissonant blues licks and riffs, Mu delivers a record that doesn't remind me of anything I've ever heard before. You can hear the broken-up composition style of Captain Beefheart (of which the bass player originated) and yet it's totally different music. Another feature is the CSNY-like vocal harmonies on some of the tracks. On other tracks the vocals are more creepy.

Imaginative, intelligent, rhythmic and diverse music with a deep spiritual feeling to lift your heart, mind and body: Look at the sun, look at the moon, brother we are one. This album is like a time tunnel to the good aspects of the sixties: a mystical warm vibe, the feel of being connected to everyone and everything, respect to human and animal life and the living in touch with nature. Long live Mu, the mythical continent of Lemuria!

From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/mu/mu/reviews/3/

Maria Muldaur - My Tennessee Mountain Home

 #Maria Muldaur #folk #blues #country #jazz #folk rock #Americana #pop rock #1960s #1970s

In autumn 1962, the young blues fanatics Joe Boyd and Geoff Muldaur arrived at the Cornell Folk Festival in Ithaca, New York, too late to hear the performers they’d come to see, Doc Watson and Sleepy John Estes. As Boyd recounts in his memoir White Bicycles, they stuck around for a post-gig party where the musicians and fans unwound and sang old gospel tunes. “We noticed a dark-haired beauty with a long black braid accompanying the Watson party on fiddle or keeping time with a set of bones. Geoff was too shy to talk to her, but swore he would marry her.”
The young lady was the Greenwich Village-born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D’Amato, and she did marry Geoff, performing with him in the old-timey Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and eventually recording two albums as a duo for Reprise Records, 1969’s Pottery Pie and Sweet Potatoes in 1972. By 1973, their marriage was over and Geoff joined Paul Butterfield’s band Better Days just as Maria Muldaur’s career was about to skyrocket. She recorded her first solo album, supervised by two men she called “the dynamic duo,” her old friend Boyd and Warner/Reprise staff producer Lenny Waronker. “I had heard what Lenny did for Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, and I just loved what he could do with acoustic material,” she told the writer Jacoba Atlas. “There’s a total presence there that a lot of acoustic bands miss.” Boyd, who’d produced Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, among others, once told the British writer Penny Valentine his job was simple: “I just keep anything bad from happening. I keep the path clear, love the music I’m working with, and have the experience in my ears to know what doesn’t sound right.”
A spectacular group of musicians was brought in for the sessions, including guitarists Cooder, David Lindley and former Byrd Clarence White, drummers Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon, fiddler Richard Greene, pianists Dr. John, Jim Dickinson and Spooner Oldham, Bill Keith on banjo and steel guitar, and Klaus Voorman, Ray Brown and Chris Ethridge playing bass. It’s difficult to imagine a better combination of talents for the situation.
Released in August 1973, Maria Muldaur is a potent blend of country, blues, folk and pop, and it still sounds fresh. Muldaur wasn’t a songwriter, but her instincts for picking material were spot on. She gave crucial exposure to several unknown or under-appreciated songwriters, including Kate McGarrigle (“The Work Song”), Wendy Waldman (“Mad Mad Me” and “Vaudeville Man”), Dolly Parton (“My Tennessee Mountain Home”) and David Nichtern, whose “Midnight at the Oasis” became Muldaur’s sole Billboard top 10 hit when released as a single.  From: https://bestclassicbands.com/maria-muldaur-solo-debut-album-review-5-19-20/