David Crosby - Music Is Love

 #David Crosby #Crosby, Stills & Nash #folk #folk rock #West coast folk rock #singer-songwriter #contemporary folk #ex-The Byrds #1970s

Contrary to popular opinion, the most stacked supergroup of the early 1970s was not Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. CSNY were not even, in fact, the most auspicious collective to include David Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young at the time. That honor went to a bigger, wilder, albeit less-heralded amalgam known briefly as The Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra. It’s discography was sketchy, its personnel fluid, but PERRO pivoted around Crosby, Nash and most of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, with auxiliary memberships for Young and Joni Mitchell, among others. Named by Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner, they convened for his late 1970 album, Blows Against The Empire; a baroque psych gang show that recast the counterculture’s desire to escape urban life as a sci-fi mission to distant planets rather than as a rural property grab in Laurel Canyon or Marin County.
Crosby had moved next door to Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart’s Marin ranch in late 1969, and the Orchestra members had many other things in common, not least a fondness for Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, and for Kantner’s awe-inspiring “Ice Bag” weed. It was at Heider’s that CSNY had battled through Déjà Vu, and where the Dead had crafted the sepia-toned epiphanies of American Beauty. As sessions for that last album were winding down in the summer of 1970, the Orchestra’s amorphous jams began to coalesce into their finest achievement. The stories that have become legend about Crosby and his circle often fixate on feuding, egomania, and patterns of behavior that in most every light look morally unconscionable. But If I Could Only Remember My Name reveals an alternative, parallel truth: a solo album, predicated on one man’s grief, where a musical community came together to help him transcend it.
On the morning of September 30, 1969, the same week that the first CSN album went gold in the States, Crosby’s girlfriend Christine Hinton handed over a few joints to Crosby and Nash, loaded her cats into a green Volkswagen bus, and left their Marin place on the way to the vet. En route, she crashed into a school bus coming in the opposite direction; Crosby would have to identify her body later in the day. The tragedy did not derail work on Déjà Vu, and by the summer of 1970 Crosby was still processing his loss. “I didn’t have any equipment to deal with that,” he told Jesse Jarnow for the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast in 2020. “The only place that I knew I wouldn’t be utterly terrified and crying and distraught was in the studio. They all knew that the only time I was happy was when I was singing, so they got me singing every chance they could get. It was an act of kindness, but it was also joy.”
If I Could Only Remember My Name had a large cast, but they moved with great discretion. There were communal healing rites like the opening Music Is Love, and one solemn indictment of The Man – What Are Their Names, featuring a chorale of Nash, Young, Mitchell, Kantner, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Grace Slick and David Freiberg. Mostly, though, their presence was blurred and indistinct, giving Crosby the space to express himself in the distrait way – abstracted tunings, wordless harmonies, an aesthetic at once psychedelic and medieval – that he’d been finessing since his time in The Byrds.  From: https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/new-music/david-crosby-his-masterpiece-revisited/

Richard & Linda Thompson - A Little Night Music - Nocturnes BBC 1981

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Part 2

 

 #Richard & Linda Thompson #folk rock #British folk rock #contemporary folk #singer-songwriter #ex-Fairport Convention #1970s #music video

It’s nearly 55 years since Richard Thompson began his career in music. A pioneer of folk-rock, hugely influential singer-songwriter and one of Britain’s most astonishing guitarists, he was only a month out of his teens on the morning of 12 May 1969 when all promise was nearly stopped short. His band, Fairport Convention, had been signed on the spot in 1967 when producer Joe Boyd saw his talent with a guitar at 17, and their mission to reconnect British rock with the older, beautiful songs of their home country was well under way. He’d already jammed with Jimi Hendrix and supported Pink Floyd; now Thompson’s band had recently finished their third album, Unhalfbricking, with singer Sandy Denny. A work full of ambitious originals and covers that still regularly appears in best British album polls.
That morning they were driving back to London from a Birmingham gig, approaching the last service station on the M1. Guitarist Simon Nicol was trying to sleep off a migraine, stretched out on top of the speakers in the back. Thompson’s girlfriend, fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn, was asleep. Thompson was dozing between her and roadie Harvey Bramham, who was driving. “It was starting to get light. Nearly dawn, nearly home,” Thompson writes in Beeswing, his forthcoming memoir. Thompson noticed the van, travelling at 70mph, suddenly veering towards the motorway’s central reservation. In those days there were no crash barriers. He turned his head to Bramham – his eyes were closed. Thompson grabbed the wheel to avoid hitting a pole. The van came off the road. In one of the most arresting passages of the book, he describes crawling over to Jeannie a few yards away. He is bleeding, with broken ribs; he finds her upside down on a sloping embankment. They had been together a fortnight: he didn’t really know her at all, and then she died. Martin Lamble, the band’s 19-year-old drummer, also didn’t survive. Remarkably Nicol got out and walked down the road, flagging down a passing car. He is still the leader of Fairport Convention, 52 years later.
But Thompson left in early 1971, still shell-shocked by the crash, to pursue a solo career that flew well beyond British folk. Ever since, he’s lovingly explored and excavated genres from rockabilly to flamenco, music-hall to pop. A favourite of both Robert Plant and Elvis Costello, Thompson has also been covered by acts as varied as feminist punks Sleater-Kinney, REM, David Byrne and, most recently, Mark Ronson, who covered the 1974 title track of Thompson’s album with first wife Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. Ronson tweeted how much the song had given him comfort during lockdown. “It’s the ultimate song about a messy weekend night out. I miss that all very much.”
That period of Thompson’s career is especially rich: he met Linda in 1969, and they married in 1972, then made fantastic music together for the next decade. Linda is one of Britain’s greatest, but most overlooked, singers, possessed of a bold, beautiful voice that carried the songs Richard wrote for her, and accompanied dramatically with his guitar. Their story outside music is dramatic too. It involves Richard’s conversion to Sufism, a move with their two young children to a rural commune without hot water and electricity, subsequent adultery during pregnancy, and a traumatic tour after their breakup where Linda kicked Richard in the shins while he played guitar solos (it’s known by their fans as The Tour from Hell). From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/14/richard-thompson-beeswing-fairport-folk-rock-interview

Richard Thompson left Fairport Convention after 1970’s Full House, his reputation secured as an excellent songwriter and guitarist. He released a spectacularly unsuccessful solo album, Henry the Human Fly, in 1972. He then married Linda Peters and they released six albums between 1974 and 1982; their relationship broke down before an ill-fated North American tour in 1982. The duo’s music is often melancholic, and it’s a common trick of Richard Thompson to pair upbeat music with depressing lyrics. They often play acoustic folk-rock, especially on their early albums, but 1978’s First Light uses an L.A. rhythm section and 1982’s Shoot Out The Lights has few vestiges of folk remaining. Linda and Richard share the vocal duties – while Richard’s gruff voice is limited, Linda’s pristine voice is able to capture a range of moods, from joy on ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ to resignation on ‘Walking on a Wire’. The pair’s first album, 1974’s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and their 1982 swan song Shoot Out The Lights are generally considered as their strongest. In between they spent time in a Sufi Muslim commune, taking three years away from music. Richard has stated that he considers their late 1970s albums as weak, as he didn’t have his mind on the job.  From: https://albumreviews.blog/reviews/1970s-album-reviews/richard-and-linda-thompson/

Four decades after Richard and Linda Thompson released 1974’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, their beautiful and terrifying first album as a duo—after their music failed to attract significant commercial interest; after the conversion to Sufism, the three kids, the arduous years spent living on a religious commune; after he left her for another woman just as mainstream success seemed within their reach; after she clocked him with a Coke bottle and sped off in a stolen car during their disastrous final tour —after everything, Linda was working on a new song about the foolishness of love. It was a lot like the songs Richard used to write for them in the old days: Despairing, but not hopeless, with a melody that seemed to float forward from some forgotten era, and a narrator who can’t see past the walls of his own fatalism. “Whenever I write something like that I think, ‘Oh, who could play the guitar on that?’” she recalled later. “And then I think, ‘Only Richard, really.’”
Can you blame her? Though both Thompsons have made fine albums since the collapse of their romantic and musical relationships in the early 1980s, there is something singular in the blend of her gracefully understated singing and his fiercely expressive playing, a heaven-bound quality that redeems even their heaviest subject matter, which neither can quite reach on their own. As lovers, they could be violently incompatible, but as musicians, they were soul mates. The existence of latter-day collaborations like Linda’s 2013 song “Love’s for Babies and Fools,” one of a handful of recordings they’ve made together since the 2000s, proves the lasting power of a partnership that seemed doomed from the start.
The Thompsons met in 1969, while Richard was working on Liege & Lief, the fourth album by Fairport Convention, the pioneering British band he’d co-founded when he was 18. With his bandmates, he envisioned a new form of English folk music, combining scholarly devotion to centuries-old song forms with the electrified instruments and exploratory spirit of late-’60s rock. The misty and elegiac Liege & Lief was their masterpiece, but it had come at a price. Months earlier, Fairport’s van driver fell asleep at the wheel on a late-night drive home from a gig, and the ensuing crash killed Martin Lamble, their drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson’s girlfriend at the time. According to Thompson, the decision to press on and record Liege & Lief was driven in part by a desire to “distract ourselves from grief and numb the pain of our loss.”
The folk-rock musicians who orbited Fairport in London comprised a hard-drinking scene, where money was usually tight, and revelry and song took precedence over talk about feelings. “They didn’t send you to therapy in those days - we didn’t grieve properly,” Richard Thompson told a podcast interviewer this year. The losses would keep coming. Nick Drake, an ex-boyfriend of Linda’s and occasional collaborator of Richard’s, who struggled to find an audience during his short life, was sliding toward oblivion by the early 1970s. And Sandy Denny, the radiant and mercurial former singer of Fairport, as well as a close friend of both Thompsons, was not far behind him. The fading spirits of fellow travelers like these haunt I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. Its songs treat drink, festivity, and even love as fleeting escapes from life’s difficulties, staring through the good times to the black holes that often lie behind them.
Richard lasted for one more album with Fairport, then left the band with hopes of making it as a solo artist. Legend has it that Henry the Human Fly, his 1972 debut, was the worst-selling album in the history of Warner Brothers at the time. He was working steadily as a session and touring musician, but at the ripe old age of 23, he couldn’t help feeling a little washed up. Linda’s career as a folk singer, despite the arresting clarity of her voice, had been only moderately successful, and she was entertaining thoughts of cashing in, going pop. She was only a “weekend hippie,” she has said. And though he was still a few years away from embracing Muslim mysticism, he was already something of a monastic: declining to cash checks for his session work, and following a devotion to modernizing English folk that was so intense it led him to turn down invitations to join several high-profile bands because their styles were too American. Despite their differences in approach to life and career, something clicked. She moved into his Hampstead apartment, and they married in 1972.
Their reason for starting a musical duo was practical, but also sweetly romantic: They wanted to spend more time together. They began touring the UK’s circuit of folk clubs, humble institutions that mixed socialist idealism with commercial enterprise, often operating in the back rooms of local pubs, where Richard and Linda would share stage time with whatever barflies wanted to belt out “Scarborough Fair” or “John Barleycorn” on any given night. Audiences were receptive, but it was a rugged and unglamorous way to make a career, even compared to the modest success Richard had seen with Fairport Convention. After about a year on the circuit, they were ready to graduate to bigger stages, and to make an album.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/richard-and-linda-thompson-i-want-to-see-the-bright-lights-tonight/

Cat Stevens - Father and Son

 #Cat Stevens #folk rock #pop rock #album rock #singer-songwriter #1970s #music video

This song is a conversation between a father and son, with the father counseling his son to stay home, settle down and find a girl, telling him this is the path to happiness - after all, it worked for him. The son, though, feels compelled to leave and is frustrated because his dad makes no effort to understand why he wants to go or even hear him out.
Stevens made up the story, but his relationship with his own father, Stavros Georgiou, was an influence on the song. His dad owned a restaurant in London, and Cat (known to his dad as Steven Georgiou) worked there as a waiter right up until he signed a record deal at age 17. Stavros was hoping his son would join the family business. When he appeared on The Chris Isaak Hour in 2009, Stevens said: "He was running a restaurant and I was a pop star, so I wasn't following the path that he laid out. But we certainly didn't have any antagonism between us. I loved him and he loved me."
Stevens veered away from his upbringing again in 1977 when he rejected Christianity and became a Muslim, changing his name to Yusuf Islam.
The generational divide that plays out in the lyric can apply to many families, but Stevens had a specific storyline in mind, writing it from the perspective of a father and son in a Russian family during the Russian Revolution (1917-1923). The son wants to join the revolution but his father wants him to stay home and work on the farm. Stevens, a huge fan of show tunes, wrote it in 1969 for a musical he was working on called Revolussia, which is set during the Russian Revolution. The song is part of a scene where the son feels it is his calling to join in, but his father wants him to stay home. The musical never materialized, so the song ended up being the first one written for Stevens' Tea For The Tillerman album. The song has a very unusual structure, which owes to its provenance as a number for a stage musical. There's no chorus, but the son's part is sung louder, providing a kind of hook. The dialogue is an interesting lyrical trick with the father and son expressing different perspectives on the situation.
This is the song that got Stevens signed to Island Records. His first two albums were issued on Deram, a division of Decca. Stevens met with Island boss Chris Blackwell to talk about the musical he wrote this song for, but when Blackwell heard the song, he set his sights on getting Stevens on his label as an artist. Stevens' first Island release was Mona Bone Jakon earlier in 1970; it was not just a new label for Stevens, but a new producer as well, with former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith taking the helm from Mike Hurst (ex-Springfields), who helped Stevens get his deal with Decca.
In 2020, Stevens released a re-recorded version of "Father and Son" for Tea for the Tillerman 2, a re-imagining of Tea for the Tillerman 50 years later. The revamped rendition brings together his smooth vocals from when he was just 22, and the seasoned voice of the 72-year-old Stevens. Chris Hopewell's top-frame animated video for the new version of "Father And Son" nods to the original release with groovy clips from the original 1970 video.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/cat-stevens/father-and-son

Alice Cooper - Elected

 #Alice Cooper #hard rock #heavy metal #glam rock #art rock #classic rock #glam metal #garage rock #1970s #music video

Alice Cooper’s truly hilarious promo film for Elected, features everyone’s favourite shock-rocker cruising the streets on his fictitious presidential campaign, ‘meeting’ the public (including one lady who appears to think he’s an actual candidate) and planning his next senatorial move with the aid of a suited-up chimp. It’s hard to convey in words just how expertly assembled this bit of irreverent comic nonsense is, from the moment a limo pulls up to reveal him grinning out of the window, to the madcap rally invaded by someone in a sub-Banana Splits elephant suit at the end, but if you’re familiar with Elected and know how good it is, then saying that it’s a perfectly judged visual accompaniment should get the manifesto across just fine. What’s particularly interesting is that while this may all seem like a two-fingered response to America’s political establishment in the wake of Watergate, the actual scandal was still some months away from breaking when the song was recorded and indeed released as a single, and this promo film will almost certainly have in fact been filmed while the initial attempt at covering up was taking place. Nothing ever hits quite so hard as inadvertent satire way before the event.  From: https://timworthington.org/2020/08/07/were-all-gonna-rock-to-the-rules-that-i-make/

Forget Marilyn Manson, forget the Sex Pistols; when it came to shocking the self-appointed guardians of international morality to the core, Alice Cooper pretty much wrote the handbook. Flaunting a sketchy past swathed in urban legend and cunningly fabricated falsehoods concerning witches, ouija boards, dismembered chickens, blurred genders and necrophilia, Alice Cooper succeeded in outraging the forces of decency to an unprecedented degree over the course of his casual early-70s transition from cult notoriety to mainstream ubiquity. Cooper’s infamy was such that in May 1973 Leo Abse, the incumbent Labour MP for Pontypool, spluttered in the House of Commons: “I regard his [Cooper’s] act as an incitement to infanticide for his sub-teenage audience. He is deliberately trying to involve these kids in sado-masochism. He is peddling the culture of the concentration camp. Pop is one thing, anthems of necrophilia are another.” The nation’s leading censorial nanny figure, Mary Whitehouse, head of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, offered eager support to Abse’s campaign to ban Alice Cooper from returning to the UK. But as public reaction veered in the general direction of hysteria, sales of Billion Dollar Babies (Cooper’s most provocative recording to date) soared stratospherically; then, as now, controversy sells, and in 1973 nobody was selling more than Alice Cooper. Of course, back in those days Alice Cooper were a band; five individuals who had translated a shared fascination for the mop-tops and the macabre into a million-dollar industry that had not only brought them universal vilification as depraved, corruptive pariahs, but also celebrity beyond their wildest dreams.
The quintet’s story begins innocently enough in Phoenix, Arizona, when track athlete Vincent Furnier is volunteered to organise the Cortez High School’s autumn 1964 Letterman Talent Show. Unfortunately no one seems to boast any discernible talent, so Vince encourages some friends to take the stage as The Earwigs where they mime along to Beatles records while wearing Beatles wigs. Guitarist Glen Buxton can actually play his instrument. And while drummer John Speer fumbles his way around the rudiments of percussion, bassist Dennis Dunaway hones his craft with the benefit of some valuable lessons from Glen. The Earwigs metamorphose into The Spiders; they play local Battle Of The Bands shows; and they replace their departing rhythm guitarist John Tatum with ex-Cortez High football star Michael Bruce of The Trolls. Following a move to LA in spring ’67, the fledgling Coopers, now known as The Nazz, replace John Speer with fellow Phoenix emigré Neal Smith and set about endearing themselves to the Sunset Strip in-crowd by hosting regular séances.  Soon enough – now that they’re mixing in a social circle that includes The Doors’ Jim Morrison and Love’s Arthur Lee – Miss Christine (of The GTOs) arranges for the band to audition for Frank Zappa’s Straight label. The somewhat over-eager Coopers famously turn up for their 6:30 pm appointment at 6:30 am, but find their naive tenacity amply rewarded when Zappa offers them a record deal. Two days after changing their name to Alice Cooper they are taken on as the house support band at the 20,000-capacity Cheetah Ballroom, where they gradually build a following in spite of the fact that their vocalist – having ditched the name Vince in favour of the infinitely more noteworthy Alice – had taken to wearing full make-up and a pink clown costume.
Gradually, the winning Alice Cooper formula takes shape, and after recording a brace of feet-finding collections on Zappa’s Straight imprint (1969’s Pretties For You and ’70’s Easy Action) the band sign to Warner Brothers and, with Canadian whiz-kid producer Bob Ezrin at the controls, hit the peak of their form with three set-piece collections released in rapid succession: June ’71’s Love It To Death (the album that shocked America), December ’71’s Killer (the album that conquered America) and July ’72’s School’s Out (the album that conquered the world). School’s Out, bolstered by the enormity of its anthemic title track, quickly attained the accolade of being the biggest-selling album in Warners’ history and, thanks to a frenzied tabloid press virtually foaming at the mouth with a level of hyperbolic vitriol unseen since the advent of the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper became the most newsworthy and controversial band on the planet. But now came the difficult bit. In the face of blanket condemnation from the great, the good, the humourless, the pious and the post-pubescent, the band needed to consolidate their position. Specifically, they needed to make the greatest album of their career: an over-inflated Grand Guignol masterpiece; an ostentatiously offensive, flashy, crass and unbelievably expensive combination of Herschel Gordon Lewis and Busby Berkeley positively guaranteed to expand the generation gap to Grand Canyon proportions. In short, they needed to make Billion Dollar Babies. Following School’s Out was always going to be a daunting task, but with band morale at an all-time high no one involved harboured a shred of doubt that they could not only do it, but also do it in style.  From: https://classicrockreview.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/the-scandalous-story-of-alice-coopers-billion-dollar-babies-1973-2020/

Poco - A Good Feelin' To Know

 #Poco #Richie Furay #Timothy Schmidt #Jim Messina #Randy Meisner #country rock #folk rock #ex-Buffalo Springfield #pre-Eagles #1960s #1970s

For Poco – or Pogo, as they were initially called – the presence of George Harrison, Doug Dillard and Janis Joplin at their shows was surely a sign that they were going to join that aristocracy. On their debut gig they supported the well-established Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and blew them off stage. A banjo player and wannabe comedian called Steve Martin became their regular warm-up act as Hollywood flocked to catch this new sensation. Influential LA Times rock critic Robert Hillburn said Poco were destined for the top and, with Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt offering their congratulations, they believed him. But Poco didn’t become the next big thing. Or the one after that. Their story is one of temptation and corruption, thieving managers who doubled as drug dealers, openly internecine hostilities, and a side order of rampant ambition and green-eyed jealousy.
Poco were formed from the ashes of Buffalo Springfield after Neil Young effectively quit that group for the last time following a drugs bust in March 1968. During a noisy jam session at Stephen Stills’s Topanga Canyon ranch, irate neighbours called the cops. Hearing the patrol cars, Stills escaped through a back window, while the Malibu sheriff rounded up Cream’s Eric Clapton and three Buffalos – Young, Richie Furay and Jim Messina – and hauled the brain-mushed stoners off to the LA County jail, where they spent a weekend in the cells with a bunch of Black Panthers who admired their shiny hair and pink boots. Severely traumatized, Young stuck around merely for a farewell show then got out of Springfield in the same Pontiac hearse with Ontario number plates on it that he’d arrived in – and with the master tapes for his solo album. Cut adrift, Furay and Messina immediately began rehearsing a new band, with the Springfield’s nominal guitar tech Rusty Young, a pedal steel ace who could play anything with strings on it, and his drummer friend George Grantham.
“Me and Jimmy started Poco,” says Furay. “I’d been the frontman in Springfield but it was Stills’s band. Neil was restless; he had too many agendas. We bossed places like the Whisky, the Palladium and the Troubadour, but there were too many Canadians with immigration problems in the group and it just fizzled out.” Or as Young said: “We thought we’d be together forever. But we were just too young to be patient.” Everybody knew that was nowhere. Rusty Young recalls the early days: “I came from Denver to play on a Richie song called Kind Woman for the Springfield’s Last Time Around sessions, only to find they’d broken up. Richie and Jim had this concept – to mix country and rock with banjo, mandolin and dobro. It was a new idea. We searched Los Angeles for recruits.
"We tried out Greg Allman on organ, and Gram Parsons way before he joined The Byrds. They released Sweetheart Of The Rodeo using our sound, which Gram took from us and taught them. It was typical that they beat us to the punch so everyone thought we were copying them. Gram was into George Jones; there was no rock in his country at all. It’s a myth that Gram invented country rock. Chinese whispers. It became the truth, but it was an absolute lie. Sure, he formed the Flying Burrito Brothers. But only because he’d played with us." Furay, originally a pleasant farm boy from Ohio, had more reason to admire Parsons: “I knew him when we were folkies in New York City. He played me The Byrds’ first album and prompted me into that music. But I’m definitely a pioneer, because it was Poco who broke down barriers between hippies and rednecks. Country clubs, even in California, were real intimidating places. Watch out if you had moderately long hair."
With Buffalo Springfield’s accounts in disarray, and the Troubadour’s Doug Weston paying absolute bottom dollar, action was necessary. “We had no money at all,” says Rusty Young. "Our manager, Dickie Davis [Springfield’s road man], had dozens of airline tickets spread on a table. One was for Neil Young, who never turned up for gigs half the time. The name said ‘Mr. N. Young’, and since my middle name is Norman - Neil got our band off the ground.” Having enlisted bassist Randy Meisner, Poco were slow off the mark as a recording act, and had trouble settling on a band name after running into a legal battle with Walt Kelly, the creator of the wildly popular Pogo The Possum newspaper cartoon character. They flirted with calling themselves RFD (standing for Rural Free Delivery), before returning to the Troubadour in their new guise, wearing cowboy gear stitched by wives and girlfriends. Stardom seemed but a step away.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-poco-invented-a-brand-new-sound-only-to-have-it-stolen-by-the-eagles

Carole King - Pleasant Valley Sunday (demo)

 #Carole King #singer-songwriter #pop #folk pop #pop rock #Brill Building #1960s #1970s

Carole King established her solo career in 1971 with her hit album Tapestry, but in the lead up to this she had already written hits for artists such as The Shirelles, Aretha Franklin, The Monkees, The Drifters and more. To celebrate her music and 'Beautiful - The Carole King Musical' currently in London, we've put together a list of popular songs you probably didn't know were hers.

The Beatles - 'Chains' 1963

Originally written for girl group The Cookies, 'Chains' became a popular cover song for Liverpool bands, and was an early track in The Beatles' live sets. In 1963, The Beatles recorded a version for their debut album LP Please Please Me. George Harrision took lead vocals and this was the first time fans heard him singing on a commercially-released song.

Dusty Springfield - 'Goin’ Back' 1966

Made famous by Dusty Springfield, the song perfectly describes the loss of innocence when becoming an adult, and hoping to recapture an essence of youth. David Crosby lost his place in the Byrds after criticising their decision to record the song. It has been covered by Freddie Mercury, The Pretenders, Bon Jovi, Phil Collins and Diana Ross among many others.

The Shirelles - “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” 1960

The Shirelles' original is one of the most well-known soul tracks ever recorded. Lead singer Shirley Owens originally didn't want to record this track, as she believed it sounded too country. This became Carole’s first No. 1 at the young age of 18. It was later recorded for her 1971 album, Tapestry. It has been covered countless times, by everyone from Dusty Springfield to Amy Winehouse. Apparently, Carole hailed the Bee Gees' cover as the "definitive" version.

The Monkees - 'Pleasant Valley Sunday' 1967

Gerry Goffin wrote the lyrics about the faults of suburban life, based on the street he and Carole lived on called Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange, New Jersey. It became one of The Monkees' most successful singles.

The Byrds - 'Wasn’t Born to Follow' 1968

Released in 1968 on 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' album, it was used the following year to great effect on the soundtrack of Easy Rider. It has also been covered by Dusty Springfield, appearing on the 1999 'Dusty in London' album of lost recordings. Carole recorded her own version in 1969 when she was fronting a group called 'The City'.

Steve Lawrence - 'Go Away Little Girl' 1962

The lyrics consist of a man asking a young woman to get away from him, so that he will not be tempted to cheat on his girlfriend and kiss her. Control yourself, please. Later recorded in the 70s by Donny Osmond.

Aretha Franklin - '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman' 1967

Made famous by Aretha Franklin, it also appears on Carole's 1971 album, Tapesty. This powerful song has been taken on by various female powerhouses, including Celine Dion, Mary J Blige, Kelly Clarkson, Bonnie Tyler and, obviously, Rod Stewart.

From: https://blog.seetickets.com/2016/01/18/19-popular-songs-you-might-not-have-known-were-written-by-carole-king/

Carole King & Gerry Goffin

 

Fleetwood Mac - Station Man

 #Fleetwood Mac #Mick Fleetwood #John McVie #Christine McVie #blues rock #heavy blues rock #psychedelic blues rock #blues-based pop rock #1970s

Peter Green is gone and he took his blues with him. Which means now Fleetwood Mac have to figure out what their new signature sound will be without him there. It'll take another five years, six albums, and the removal of half the original band for them to find that sound; but for now we have this: Kiln House. For the most part, this is the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac doing damage control. They can't play the blues anymore so what can they do? Well, they can play rock music I guess. Jeremy Spencer has returned to the spotlight after having been accidentally pushed to the side on Then Play On, and for the most part his stuff hems more towards classic rockabilly. He gets a Sun Records sound on "This Is the Rock", pays tribute to Buddy Holly on "Buddy's Song" (a track he credited to Holly's mother), and impersonates the classic vocal doo-wop groups with "Blood on the Floor" and the closing "Mission Bell". They're OK, but they don't really point the way forward. For that, you have to look to Danny Kirwan whose songs are more built around contemporary roots rock than classic 50s rockabilly. "Jewel-Eyed Judy" is the closest song that approaches the bluesy sound of classic Fleetwood Mac but it's not as much of a showcase of guitar pyrotechnics the same way the Green material of old is. It's far more subtle in its attack, which makes for a track that maybe doesn't hit as hard as the best of Green, but certainly makes for intriguing listening. On the same level is "Earl Gray", an instrumental which feels like the natural progressive evolution from the second half of "Oh Well". But if any Kirwan track points toward the future for Fleetwood Mac, it's "Station Man". And that primarily has to do with the uncredited arrival of Christine McVie on vocal and piano work. The woman who will later write "Say You Love Me" and "Don't Stop" isn't an official member of the band yet, but the moment you hear her distinctive voice breaking through the boys' club on the harmonies, it's an immediate attention-grabber that shows the way towards where this band will eventually end up.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/fleetwood-mac/kiln-house/

Procol Harum - Simple Sister - Beat-Club 1971

 #Procol Harum #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #art rock #proto-prog #1960s #1970s #music video

Procol Harum’s ‘Broken Barricades’ album starts, like ‘Home’ before it, with Robin Trower's guitar playing an unmistakable signature phrase. This angry eruption signals the start of the song that engineer John Punter called Pimple Blister, with its cruel, some would say misogynistic lyric. Like Whisky Train, this is an enormously popular song with live audiences, specially in the USA, and since it was written all Procol's guitarists – Trower, Ball, Grabham, Renwick and Whitehorn – have played it. The five-note opening rhythm, on a repeated note, even found its way unwittingly into Mick Grabham's final bars of Beyond the Pale.
On stage the song exists in two varieties, the mere three-verse one (a mere 3 minutes 17 seconds on the Beat Club recital of 27 November 1971), and the extended 'build-up' version, over a melodic bass-line midway. The longer version is far more dramatic – the same instinct for juxtaposing opposites resulted in the insertion of the quiet Bach Prelude into Repent Walpurgis, another thundering four-chord passacaglia. Strangely there are some fans who would prefer both songs in attenuated form. It's worth dilating on the origins of the central riff, which has borrowed the first five or six notes (and the sprightly rhythm) wholesale from the opening of The Capitols' 1966 Cool Jerk. But Procol do something more interesting than the Cool Jerk composers: they modulate the motif from C major up to E flat, then again to G minor and down again … it goes somewhere, rather than being just an R&B elaboration of the basic blues progression. The Cool Jerk riff starts out with bass, then adds 'some eighty-eights' (a particularly shoddy-sounding piano), then immediately the whole band, but Brooker's ensemble builds up minutely slowly, something added every time the refrain re-starts, constantly surprising the listener with melodic and rhythmic ideas, begging the question, 'how can this end'? Musically the arrangement (by Brooker, conducted by George Martin, who is not credited on the sleeve) may be one of the big anomalies in the Procol catalogue: most of their orchestral work draws on baroque or romantic European traditions, but here the layering also seems reminiscent of modern, minimalist composers like Reich and Glass. Other famous records use heavy repetition and progressive layering – for instance Hey Jude and I Want You (She's So Heavy) – but these cases have endings faded or cut, somehow leaving the effect unconsolidated in one's ear. We do hear such a throwaway technique on the Barricades album in the final minutes of the title track. But Simple Sister, like its antecedent Whaling Stories, offers remission from the build-up, finding a closure that offers emotional relief.
This unique build-up is finely structured. Bars 1 to 32 follow the Skip Softly chords, after which the guitar plays a more-or-less fixed melody over the Cool Jerk riff, heard for the first time. Bars 41 to 64 comprise another 'unit' of Skip Softly and Cool Jerk; then the guitar lets rip for an improvisation over the Skip Softly chords, running from bars 65 to 88 (at the end of which section we hear a cross-fade between two takes, using two different guitars). Bar 89 begins a Skip Softly sequence that delays its last chord, and the brief drum break at 97 begins the Cool Jerk section in earnest. Piano, bass and drums start it at 98; bar 106 adds one of the manic chattering sounds we now know to be Gary Brooker's piano, recorded while running the tape slow, and subsequently speeded up. Chris 'The Grouts' Michie describes this process in illuminating detail here: for a long time the source of this sound was a mystery, though Geoff Whitehorn's strummed guitar does a capable job of imitating it in live performance. One more piano note is added every eight bars until 146, by which time high 'chiming' notes are heard as well, and at 154 guitar and 'celli join the chattering fray, with some quiet brass. High melodic strings are added at 170, whooping brass at 178, and heavy Wagnerian brass at 186. Just when pop precedent primes us to expect a fade, the Skip Softly motif cuts in at 194, and one more verse is sung; 210 sees the speedy coda, (including a new chord!) and the long growling C minor sustain at 213 ends the song. Gary told the NME (5 June 1972) that this was 'Music from the 23rd century'.
The reversion, from the Cool Jerk section to the opening matter again, is done with a musical brutality entirely suited to the cruelty of the words. It’s a song of vitriol and abuse, continuing the Still There'll Be More vein of writing. Perhaps it was a deliberate irony, adapting the riff of a positive, life-enhancing dance tune to offset Keith Reid’s savage libretto. This piece portrays serial vindictiveness like Poor Mohammed does: but what disease merits such cruel treatment? Despite the problems of interpretation that it poses to the record-buyer, Gary told NME that the piece was 'Lyrically quite simple, but there's something very personal about it. A quick summary of a situation Keith ran into somewhere.'  From: https://www.procolharum.com/tn+sq/bb_tr_simpl.htm

Planxty - 'P' Stands For Paddy, I Suppose

 #Planxty #Christy Moore #Andy Irvine #Irish folk #world music #Celtic folk #traditional #1970s

 Irish stalwarts Planxty begin Cold Blow and the Rainy Night -- their third record for Shanachie -- with a rousing version of the Scottish battlefield classic "Johnnie Cope." It's a fitting opening to a record that essentially rounded out their recording heyday as the members splintered off to form equally influential Celtic acts like the Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, and De Danann. Co-founder Dónal Lunny, despite contributing instrumentally to a few tracks and taking a seat in the production chair, left the group, allowing newest member Johnny Moynihan to take over bouzouki and -- along with Andy Irvine and Christy Moore -- vocal duties. The title track is one of the finest of their career, utilizing Liam O'Flynn's expert uillean pipes and the band's peerless harmonizing to a tee. Moore's gorgeous "Lakes of Pontchartrain" and Irvine's moving closer, "Green Fields of Canada," showcase the group's timeless mastery of balladry, a style that would greatly inform their later solo works. Cold Blow and the Rainy Night, along with The Well Below the Valley, and their legendary debut, are essential listening for those in love with, or merely intrigued with, the genre.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/cold-blow-and-the-rainy-night-mw0000206988

P Stands for Paddy / T Stands for Thomas

Planxty sang ‘P’ Stands for Paddy, I Suppose on their 1974 album Cold Blow and the Rainy Night. They noted: We first heard ‘P’ Stands for Paddy a long time ago from Joe Heaney but we didn't get the words until recently. These came from a recording of Colm Keene of Glinsk Co. Galway. The verses are a strange mixture as if made up from different songs and it has a fine air.

Lal and Norma Waterson sang T Stands for Thomas on the Watersons' 1975 album, For Pence and Spicy Ale, Norma Waterson sang it on the Holme Valley Tradition cassette Will's Barn, and Waterson/Carthy sang it live at the Beverley Folk Club in June 1992. A.L. Lloyd noted on the Watersons' original album: These B for Barney, P for Paddy, J for Jack songs are usually Irish in origin though common enough in the English countryside. Often the verses are just a string of floaters drifting in from other lyrical songs. So it is with this piece, which derives partly from a version collected by Cecil Sharp from a Gloucestershire gipsy, Kathleen Williams. Some of the verses are familiar from an As I Walked Out song sung to Vaughan Williams by an Essex woodcutter, Mr Broomfield. The verses about robbing the bird's nest recall The Verdant Braes of Skreen.

Peter and Barbara Snape sang T Stands for Thomas on their 2008 CD Take to the Green Fields. Barbara Snape noted: This particular version of the song is an Irish/English hybrid! I first heard it in Liverpool some time ago, sung by an Irish singer, Davy Brennan. Having never forgotten it, but never quite fully remembering it either, I have used the version published in The Wanton Seed to supplement the bits I had lost.

Niamh Boadle sang P Stands for Paddy in 2010 on her CD Wild Rose. She commented on this Irish traditional song: A conversation overheard and dwelt on to learn about love. Not a strictly orthodox method of teaching but there you go.

From: https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/songs/tstandsforthomas.html

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Effigy

 #Creedence Clearwater Revival #roots rock #blues rock #country rock #swamp rock #classic rock #1960s #1970s

"Effigy," written by Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty, is the last track on the Willy and the Poor Boys album. This was the fourth studio album released and the third platinum album for CCR, riding the peak of their popularity in 1969. This song is a good example of the "roots rock" style that CCR helped to pioneer. While Bob Dylan is largely credited with starting the roots movement in 1966, only a handful of bands followed that lead, while the rest turned to folk, blues, or psychedelia. CCR fits into the niche within the country-influenced roots rock genre in between The Byrds, Tom Petty, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Eagles, and of course The Flying Burrito Brothers. By sticking to the basics while everybody else was jumping on the experimentation bandwagon, they could be progressive and anachronistic at the same time.
Another thing that set CCR apart was the tight cohesion of the band members. While other groups swapped members between each other like so many kids playing Red Rover, CCR remained their own little island of Fogerty, Fogerty, Clifford, and Cook, with the only change being when Tom Fogerty split in 1971, after which they were down to a trio. Furthermore, they had considerable influence for a band that was only releasing albums together five years!
CCR drummer Doug Clifford said that this is a political song through and through. "It's pointing the finger at the Nixon administration when they were crumbling," he explained in Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revivial. "The dark period, if you will." An effigy is a model of an actual person that is made for the purpose of being destroyed as an act of protest or expression of anger. The "palace lawn" is referring to the lawn of the White House. In Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music, Fogerty affirms Nixon as the inspiration for his song, calling the former president "a schmuck." The specific event that triggered Fogerty to write the song happened October 15, 1969, when millions of people marched around the world to protest the Vietnam War. Nixon completely dismissed the event. As Fogerty remembers it, the former president said, "Nothing you do here today will have any effect on me. I'm going back inside to watch the football game." That dismissive attitude enraged Fogerty at the time and, judging from the writing in Fortunate Son, enrages him still.
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/creedence-clearwater-revival/effigy

Queen - Live At The Rainbow 1974

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Part 2

#Queen #Freddie Mercury #Brian May #Roger Taylor #hard rock #glam rock #progressive rock #heavy metal #classic rock #1970s #live music video

Truly great stage presence is a rare gift for any band. Sure, some acts can get away with just standing around and playing their hits, but a really amazing concert experience requires that little extra something -- that indefinable spark of charisma and electric personality. That ability to reach out into the crowd and command an audience, fully connecting with every single fan no matter how large the venue is. Led by the unique musical charms of Freddie Mercury, Queen had that singular talent, turning every one of their performances into something special, and 'Live at the Rainbow '74' is no different. Featuring the band after the release of their first three albums, the show captures the group at the cusp of super stardom, revealing their early penchant for kinetic showmanship.
Filmed over two nights at the Rainbow Theater in North London in November 1974, the concert spotlights the band during their "Sheer Heart Attack Tour." The lineup consists of Brian May on lead guitar, John Deacon on bass, Roger Taylor on drums, and Freddie Mercury as the lead vocalist and pianist. Primarily made up of tracks from the group's first three albums, the songs carry a distinct mixture of styles, blending hard rock and progressive rock sensibilities with a more melodic and occasionally even operatic quality. With that said, these earlier records don't quite carry the same pop friendly stadium rock style that the band's later anthem hits ("We Will Rock You," "We Are the Champions") would become famous for.
After a brief intro following the band into the Rainbow Room, we quickly segue straight into the show. Opening with a rousing rendition of "Now I'm Here," we start in darkness only to have the lights kick on and off during key beats before finally bathing the stage in a warm glow as the band really kicks it into high gear. From there, we're treated to an energetic and varied view of the show, complete with close-ups, wide-shots, zooms, and frequent dissolves. Likewise, the lighting design keeps things interesting, washing the screen in moody oranges, greens, and blues, nicely complementing the tempos of each song. And what would a rock show be without smoke? Well, I'm not sure, but fret not! We get plenty of atmospheric fog.
Of course, Freddie Mercury is not one to be up-staged by mere lights and camera angles, and the legendary front-man commands the spotlight. First decked out in all white and then sporting a black ensemble complete with diamond claws (apparently a gift from the devil himself), the only thing louder than the singer's costume choices, is his voice. And wow, what a voice it is. With incredible range and seemingly effortless poise, Mercury carries us through the set-list without skipping a beat, infusing each note with deep emotion and charm. Likewise, the musician will playfully address the audience in between tracks to introduce new songs, maintaining a fun and intimate rapport with his fans. The rest of the band also get their moments to shine keeping things from becoming a one-man show, and we're treated to some fantastic drum and guitar solos as well.
Highlights include spirited performances of "Killer Queen" and "Keep Yourself Alive," and the band's climactic take on "In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited" is simply riveting. Really, there are no missteps throughout the entire production and each song is fully realized. Together, Mercury, May, Taylor, and Deacon create a truly engaging concert experience, using a little bit of rock star flash to enhance but not overpower their music. Instead, everything flows together perfectly, and each band member is firing on all cylinders, bringing the group's unique sound to life with a dynamic spark.  From: https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/12753/queenliveattherainbow74.html

 

Mother's Finest - Truth'll Set You Free

 #Mother's Finest #funk rock #hard rock #R&B #funk metal #soul #1970s

Lemmy named his band Bastard before he decided on Motörhead. Lars Ulrich thought Thunderfuck was the way to go, before taking the name of his friend’s fanzine titled Metallica. And as Joyce ‘Baby Jean’ Kennedy recalls, the greatest of all funk rock bands once considered calling themselves The Motherfuckers. “We wanted to say that,” she says, laughing, “but we couldn’t have gotten away with it. So we just took the ‘MF’ and became Mother’s Finest.”
With a multi-racial line-up and a sound described as ‘Sly And The Family Stone-meets-Led Zeppelin’ – a combustible mix of soul power and hard-rock muscle – Mother’s Finest emerged in the early 70s as a band on a mission. As Kennedy puts it: “We wanted to make music that anybody could enjoy. We wanted to entertain and to be provocative, to give people food for thought. It was soulful, spiritual rock’n’roll, sexy and heavy with guitar. We were encompassing all of those things.”
There were multi-racial groups and black rock stars before them – Sly And The Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix being the most significant. But “our band was predominately black”, Kennedy says. In the definitive Mother’s Finest line-up, fronted by Kennedy and her husband Glenn ‘Doc’ Murdock, and featuring Jerry ‘Wyzard’ Seay on bass and Mike Keck on keyboards, the white members were drummer Barry ‘B.B. Queen’ Borden and guitarist Gary Moore, whose nickname ‘Moses Mo’, would distinguish him from the Irish guitar hero. It was with this line-up that the band made their reputation as a fearsome live act, and reached a creative peak between ’76 and ’77 with two albums produced by Tom Werman, who was then working with Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick.
But for Mother’s Finest the big breakthrough never came. Which, Kennedy says, was a mystery to Werman. “Tom always wondered why this was one band he produced where it never happened on a huge level.” She says that from the band’s perspective, with a mixture of pride and fatalism: “We had all the things that would make it work, but for some reason the spheres didn’t see it that way.” As she looks back on the glory days of a band she still leads, alongside Doc and Moses Mo – a band whose influence has carried over the decades in the music of Prince, Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, Dan Reed Network and more – she accepts that what made Mother’s Finest unique was also what made them a hard sell in what was a less enlightened era. “The band was multi-racial, and that was rare,” she says. “Especially doing rock music with two people of colour out front. It was a beautiful thing. But back then nobody really knew how to make it work within the bureaucracy of the music industry. I just think that this band was a little bit before its time.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/mothers-finest-we-were-paving-the-way-for-things-to-happen-in-music-but-we-didnt-know-it

Mother's Finest is a funk rock band founded in Atlanta, Georgia by the singer couple Joyce Kennedy and Glenn Murdock in the early seventies. Mother's Finest was one of the "first real rock bands with both black and white members". Their music was a blend of funky rhythm, heavy guitars and expressive rock singing. Their debut album Mother's Finest from 1976 today is a rare collector's piece and contains the ironic song "Niggizz Can't Sang Rock & Roll" (they were criticized for it by an important reverend and had to suspend it from their live concerts). In 1978 they were guests on the German broadcast "Rockpalast" and with one concert (recently reedited in Europe as the DVD Mother's Finest - At Rockpalast) they gathered cult status in Europe which lasts until today. In the late seventies they produced more soul-oriented albums and at the beginning of the eighties some heavy rock on the album “Iron Age”. In the nineties they were back with "Black radio won't play this record", a funk metal album, and their last CD was "Meta-funk'n-physical" from 2004 which is more hip hop and electronic beats oriented.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Mother%27s+Finest/+wiki

Ike & Tina Turner - Whole Lotta Love

 #Ike & Tina Turner #soul #R&B #funk #blues #funk rock #rock & roll #1960s #1970s #Led Zeppelin cover

As husband and wife, Ike & Tina Turner headed up one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit during the '60s and early '70s. Guitarist and bandleader Ike kept his ensemble tight and well-drilled while throwing in his own distinctively twangy plucking; lead vocalist Tina was a ferocious whirlwind of power and energy, a raw sexual dynamo who was impossible to contain when she hit the stage, leading some critics to call her the first female singer to embody the true spirit of rock & roll. In their prime, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue specialized in a hard-driving, funked-up hybrid of soul and rock that, in its best moments, rose to a visceral frenzy that few R&B acts of any era could hope to match. Effusively praised by white rock luminaries like the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, Tina was unquestionably the star of the show, with a hugely powerful, raspy voice that ranks among the all-time soul greats. For all their concert presence, the Turners sometimes had problems translating their strong points to record; they cut singles for an endless succession of large and small independent labels throughout their career, and suffered from a shortage of the strong original material that artists with more stable homes (Motown, Atlantic, Stax, etc.) often enjoyed. The couple's well-documented marital difficulties (a mild way of describing Ike's violent, drug-fueled cruelty) eventually dissolved their partnership in the mid-'70s. Tina, of course, went on to become an icon and a symbol of survival after the resurgence of her solo career in the '80s, but it was the years she spent with Ike that made the purely musical part of her legend.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ike-tina-turner-mn0000094224/biography

Comus - Song to Comus

 #Comus #acid folk #freak folk #folk rock #progressive folk #British folk rock #psychedelic folk #1970s

A guitar is hit hard and strummed with abandon, another is plucked and joined by a flute, the demented voice of Roger Wootton breaks in to sing: “Bright the sunlight summer day, Comus wakes he starts to play. Virgin fair smiles so sweet, Comus’ heart begins to beat’. Each of the ending words are echoed out in repeat, “play, play, play, play.” The song continues on to tell a form of the Comus story, based on John Milton’s masque of the same name, in which he ensnares a lady in a forest. “Comus glare, Comus bare, Comus rape”.
In 1630 a heinous charge of sodomy and rape was brought upon the head of the Earl of Castlehaven, who was tried and convicted of sodomy with his page, and accused of provoking and assisting another to rape his wife – part of a twisted plan to produce an alternate heir. Described by the judge as an ‘unnatural crime’, he was found guilty and beheaded three weeks later on Tower Hill. Four years after this event, his brother-in-law John Egerton, the 1st Earl of Bridewater, arrived at Ludlow castle to take up his new appointment as Lord President of Wales. To celebrate the occasion, the poet John Milton wrote a masque, named ‘Comus’. It is said that the masque was performed to cleanse the family’s past and to help forget the crimes of the Earl of Castlehaven.
John Milton (born in 1608), worked as a civil servant under Oliver Cromwell, and was a renowned poet and scholar, best known for his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’, that ruminates on the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan. His masque ‘Comus’ tells the story of two brothers and a sister who find themselves lost in a forest. When the sister, known as the Lady, stops to rest, her brothers search on for food. Comus then appears to her, a kind of god of chaos based on the Greek god of the same name, disguised as a villager. He tricks and captures her, and takes her to his pleasure palace, putting her on a bewitched chair where he uses a necromancers wand and entices her to drink from his magical cup. She refuses in the name of chastity and temperance. Eventually she is rescued by her brothers with help from The Attendant Spirit, a kind of angel. Who manage to chase Comus away, but they can’t free their sister from the chairs spell. The Spirit gives them aid by calling the water nymph Sabrina with a song, who subsequently frees the Lady. The three siblings return home to be reunited with their parents in jubilation. ‘Song to Comus’ uses the middle part of the poem, where the demon finds the Lady in the forest, as its basis. Roger Wootton sings wildly with glee as he enacts Comus, ‘hands of steel, crack you open and your red flesh peel.’ The band ramp up the darkness with theatre, as they do with on most of the songs on their unique debut ‘First Utterance’.
Comus formed tentatively in 1967 with the meeting of guitarists Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring at Ravensbourne college. During that period they started to play folk clubs together and later met David Bowie at the Arts Lab in Beckenham, who then asked them to perform regularly at his curated evenings. They met their manager Chris Youle at the college, as well as a violinist, Colin Pearson, who was studying Milton at the time and suggested the band name. The bass player Andy Hellaby was found at the Arts Lab, and singer Bobbie Watson was invited to join after the rest of the band heard her harmonizing at a local house. Flautist Rob Young was found through an advert.
In 1970 they toured and played across the country like any other working band. During that year, Canadian director Lindsay Shonteff asked them to contribute to her film ‘Permissive’, a story of groupies in London. Shonteff had been impressed by a gig at which Roger cut his hand and continued to play on, bleeding on to his guitar during the song ‘Drip Drip’. Various members of Comus went on to score another three films for Shonteff, who’s ‘Permissive’ is part of the BFI flipside collection. In June of the same year, the band performed at the Purcell Rooms in London’s Royal Festival Hall supporting David Bowie. Their mesmerizing and frenetic act brought them much attention and led them to ink a contract with label Pye/Dawn. The following year they released ‘First Utterance’, with its cover depicting Comus in all his evil glory, drawn by Roger himself. Unfortunately the album had no commercial success and they disbanded in ’72. On ‘Song to Comus’ the intensity of the rest of the album is continued. ‘First Utterance’ really is a one of a kind – bizarre compelling vocals by Roger, lush foil-vocals from Bobbie, urgent guitars, apocalyptic violin playing, head nodding percussion and a burrowing flute.  From: https://www.spookyisles.com/john-miltons-tale-of-rape-and-necromancy/

Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot

 #Patti Smith #art punk #proto-punk #art rock #hard rock #new wave #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

Jeanne Hebuterne was married to a famous artist in the early 1900s. They had a child together, and she was pregnant with another. In 1920, her husband died, from either drug addiction, illness (or both). Two days later, Jeanne threw herself off a building, killing herself and her unborn child, leaving their first child orphaned. In ‘Dancing Barefoot’ Patti Smith looks at this shocking story of love, loss and grief, probably through the lens of her own relationships. She grabs the cliche "Oh God, I fell for you" with both hands, and twists it into a grotesque meditation on love and death. That last line is repeated over and over while Smith recites some cryptic poetry, probably representing the last thoughts in Jeanne's mind before she died.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858544768/

"I had the concept to write a lyric line that would have several levels - the love of one human being for another and the love of ones creator," Patti Smith wrote on her website. "So in a sense, the song addresses both physical and spiritual love."
The lyrics didn't come with the album, but a blurb on the sleeve read, "Dedicated to the rites of the heroine," which was the only way to know for sure that Smith wasn't singing the homophone "heroin." Smith says she was asked to change the word to avoid confusion and make the song more marketable, but she refused. This certainly stymied the song commercially, but Smith wasn't going to compromise her art.
Jim Morrison of The Doors was an influence on this song. "I always imagined Jim Morrison singing it, which resulted in me singing and recording it in a lower vocal register," Smith wrote. "I wanted the verse to have a masculine appeal and the chorus to have a feminine one." At the end of the song, Smith recites some of her poetry ("The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face..."), which is something Morrison innovated on Doors songs like "Peace Frog" and "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)." In some live versions, Smith would start the song with this spoken intro:
    We shut our eyes, we stretch out our arms
    And whirl on a pane of glass
    An affixation
    A fix on anything
    The line of life, the limb of tree
    The hands of he
    The promise that she
    Is blessed among women
"Dancing Barefoot" is one of Smith's most popular songs, and one of her favorites, performed at most of her concerts. It was never a hit, but neither were any of her songs with the exception of the Bruce Springsteen-written "Because The Night." Considering her acclaim it's surprising how few albums she sold and how rarely she made the charts. A song like "Dancing Barefoot" certainly could have become a hit if she had made some concessions and did the standard promotion, but that wasn't her M.O. Fans, journalists, and other musicians (like Springsteen) did what they could to spread the word, but mass appeal eluded her, which seemed to be for the best. Even decades later, many listeners are pleasantly surprised to discover her music and peel back the layers of her lyrics.
On the album notes, the song is dedicated to "Jeanne Hebuterne, mistress of Amedeo Modigliani." Modigliani was an Italian painter who died from tuberculosis in 1920. The next day, Hebuterne joined him in death by jumping out of a window.
"Dancing Barefoot" is the theme song to the 2023 miniseries Daisy Jones & The Six, about a fictional band from the '70s. The series uses a lot of original music, but producers felt "Dancing Barefoot" encapsulated the story better than anything they could write. The main character, Daisy (played by Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough), makes a spiritual connection with music that eventually leads her to the band.
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/patti-smith/dancing-barefoot

Stevie Wonder - Live PBS Soul! 1972

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Part 2

#Stevie Wonder #Motown #soul #R&B #pop soul #funk #rock #gospel #jazz #progressive soul #1970s #PBS TV broadcast #music video

Introduced by smooth-talking host Gerry B, Stevie Wonder's 50-minute 1972 live set for PSB show Soul! was never broadcast in the UK. It documents a period when Wonder's creativity was so rampant that nothing Soul!'s producers threw at him could crush it: not a contemporary dance interpretation of You And I, nor a surfeit of low-budget psychedelic effects, nor the deadly patter of Gerry B ("You used to be Little Stevie Wonder. What was it like being Little Stevie Wonder?"). He shifts between My Cherie Amour and Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind with breathtaking slickness, interpolates Superwoman with passages of intricate afro-funk and ends a frantic Uptight with a wall of dive-bombing synthesized noise. Meanwhile the studio audience provide delightful period detail: when Wonder plays a vocorder, they gasp in awe, as if he's just donned a jet pack and flown around the studio.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/30/dvdreviews.popandrock

Oh boy. It just doesn’t get much better than this. Stevie Wonder at the height of his powers playing on the PBS show Soul! with his band Wonderlove. The episode was broadcast on December 20, 1972, just two months after his landmark album Talking Book was released. One month later, “Supersitious” would be the number one song in the country. As you watch this footage, try to wrap your brain around the fact that the man was all of 22 years old. From all indications Soul! was a wonderful show indeed. Produced by Ellis Haizlip, it ran from 1968 to 1973 and featured a wide array of incredible black performers and personalities, including Al Green, Kool and the Gang, the Staple Singers, Richie Havens, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Herbie Hancock, and Gladys Knight and the Pips as well as fascinating individuals like James Baldwin, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Louis Farrakhan, Nikki Giovanni, James Earl Jones, Melvin Van Peebles, and Stokely Carmichael. On occasion people like Curtis Mayfield or Wilson Pickett would take over the hosting duties. Nobody can say they put on a dull program. There’s so much astounding stuff in this video. Stevie sings a chunk on “My Cherie Amour” in Italian, while “You and I” is accompanied by a fully choreographed ballet. Stevie covers Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”—on this last number, Stevie uses a vocoder to arresting effect. There’s a brief, amusing interview with host Gerry Bledsoe. Like any good show, things heat up steadily, and by the end things are well-nigh out of control, up to and including the kaleidoscopic video effects (which actually make use of a kaleidoscope).

Track listing:
For Once in My Life
If You Really Love Me
Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)
You and I (We Can Conquer the World)
What’s Going On/My Cherie Amour
Blowin’ in the Wind
With a Child’s Heart
Love Having You Around
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours/Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone
Superstition
Maybe Your Baby/Superstition Outro
Uptight (Everything’s Alright)

From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/higher_ground_transcendent_stevie_wonder_pbs_tv_special_from_1972

Today we take it for granted that Black culture is mainstream American culture. But, before the age of hip-hop, cable TV, the internet, streaming, and mobile phones, African Americans basically had to crowdsource their own entertainment guide. Forget about Black stories being told — so few Black artists were even accepted on TV that the African American community found out via word of mouth when a beloved performer would make a guest appearance on a sitcom, drama, or talk show. One appearance was treated as an important event. During the Civil Rights Era, negative representations of violence were easy to find on the nightly news, but positive portrayals of Black culture were hard to come by. Just one movie, TV episode, or live appearance was treasured. Sammy Davis Jr. starred in a 1967 TV war thriller, The Enemy, where he figures out that a fellow GI is really a German soldier and kills him before he can sabotage American troops. Audiences were shocked; Black audiences were shocked in a very good way.
As seen in the Mr. SOUL! documentary, that was the landscape that Ellis Haizlip wanted to change with his groundbreaking, often thrilling, public television series SOUL! (exclamation point included!) SOUL! showed the Black community in a positive, highly diverse light. Haizlip did not represent the Black artistic community as a monolith but as a mosaic with only excellence and originality as the connecting threads. That community could be classically trained or church-taught, rural or urban, come with exact theatrical diction or speak with a Spanish accent.
Starting in September of 1968, Haizlip produced and eventually presented, the very best of Black art, from dance and poetry to cultural icons and thought leaders. But the glue that held Haizlip’s venture together was music. Haizlip selected R&B sax legend King Curtis as the show’s musical director and even stepped aside to have soul legends Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield present a number of episodes. Like its namesake, SOUL! featured the greatest R&B artists of the day — many of them the greatest artists of all time. Caught right at the start of his career, the unstoppable vocal talent of future Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Al Green just bursts out of the screen. The same can be said for Patti Labelle, who performed on SOUL! a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that shows how naturally the Hollywood standard fit into the Civil Rights movement.
Ellis Haizlip, a black, openly gay intellectual, may have been a theatrical producer but he could spot musical talent a mile away. The songwriting team Ashford & Simpson had just scored a huge hit for Diana Ross with “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” but Haizlip asked them to perform the song on his show. SOUL! features the duo’s very first performance and they knock it out of the park. Ashford & Simpson became stars while some artists on the series never broke through. Watching Novella Nelson’s searing rendition of “Cold Water Flat” may have you scratching your head as to why she didn’t become a household name.
The single greatest performance on SOUL! may just be Stevie Wonder’s marathon version of “Superstition.” Wonder was so thrilled to be on the series, and the audience was so into it, that Stevie would not stop playing. They literally ran out of tape - not film, tape! - and had to change cassettes to keep capturing Wonder in motion. As seen in the Mr. SOUL! documentary, when Questlove mentions the joy of watching the studio audience watching Stevie Wonder perform for them. They knew magic was being created in front of them.  From: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/listen-up-music-was-heart-of-soul/