tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526112251133814972024-03-08T00:13:59.835-08:00Music Sounds Better With TwoLenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.comBlogger310125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-88142636335957151302023-01-09T03:40:00.003-08:002023-01-09T07:54:31.950-08:00It's Never Too Late To Change Your Mind: Tammy Jones: "Let Me Try Again"<p style="text-align: justify;">If hauntology is to mean anything, then it must involve something from the present coming back to haunt the past, and it therefore incidentally follows that some unlikely pop records of old are bestowed with a new and unexpected significance. This record peaked at number two in the <i>NME </i>chart week ending 24 May 1975, twelve days before the United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum. Those of us able to vote at the time obviously did not include the eleven-year-old me, but certainly included my parents, both of whom voted "Yes," as did some 67.23% of British voters, many of whom were young and unburdened by the alleged legacies of heritage and war (I note that Windsor Davies and Don Estelle's "Whispering Grass" was vaulting from 26 to 11 in the same <i>NME </i>chart, on its way to the top).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzWqkEye3Bw">this interpretation</a> of what was originally a French song in 2023, amidst the wrecked dreams and blasted economy of what used to be Britain, is nearly, if accidentally, unbearable in its poignant promise - and I do not discount the competing but not necessarily contradictory "Let us go alone" mantra emanating from the Wales and Scotland throughout the spring of 1975.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Tammy Jones was born Helen Wyn Jones in Bangor in March 1944 and rose to prominence after winning a season of Hughie Green's <i>Opportunity Knocks</i> television talent contest. Although the publicity spoke about an ordinary Welsh housewife who just happened to have one heck of a voice, Jones was actually quite a well-known name on the cabaret circuit who had undergone formal voice training at the Guildhall School, had been recording (albeit mainly in Welsh) since the late sixties, and had already appeared on stage and television many times before <i>OK</i>, including at least one Royal Variety Performance.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The song "Let Me Try Again" had originally been called "Laisse-moi Le Temps" ("Give Me More Time") and had been recorded by many French artists, including two of its co-writers, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/5pRftEc9vjgy99syuv5KNl?si=621f62e0918b49f4">Romauld </a>and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0meoRKYGF5REpUweqOfqwz?si=9775a57392bc4334">Caravelli </a>(the third co-writer was the lyricist Michel Jourdan). In 1973, Frank Sinatra, bored by early retirement, was looking to make a comeback, and as with his previous farewell song "My Way," Paul Anka was asked to write an English lyric to the tune; this he did with the help of Sammy Cahn - so there was a real, concerted effort to bring Sinatra back.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">While the parent album <i>OI' Blue Eyes Is Back</i> is not at all bad - it is for the most part a wistful, reflective and slightly melancholy study ("There Used To Be A Ballpark," "Nobody Wins," an interesting alternate emotional take on "Send In The Clowns") - <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3unwkk28BubxXKFNzVGHMY?si=f6a5659283674d7a">Sinatra's "Let Me Try Again"</a> is a little too self-satisfied and in places a shade too bossy ("<i>Just </i>forgive me," he demands twice, like a subdued Joe Pesci); the British public I think spotted that flaw and didn't make the single a hit.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Whereas Tammy Jones sings the song like she means it. Being Welsh, there is an obvious Shirley Bassey influence at work (although intriguingly I do not think Dame Shirley herself has ever recorded the song) but Jones goes at the emotions of the song as though she'd been waiting her entire life to sing it, to articulate them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The crucial emotional difference here is that, instead of Sinatra's "Just forgive me," Jones offers "<i>Please</i> forgive me" (and, in the second chorus, a rhetorical "Oh, please forgive me"). As the key goes up for the final chorus, Jones' voice rides it smoothly (whereas Sinatra does his best to avoid or minimise the pitch shift) and by the time the song and record end, her larynx and teeth cling onto that final syllable of "again" as though she has been shaken to her core and will not let go of the song, her plea, our hope.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But in 2023 one hears such expressions as "Think of all we had before," "I was such a fool to doubt you/To try to go it all alone" and especially "Now all I do is just exist" and "Pride is such a foolish mask**," and this record sounds like the rational Britain - you know, the one in which we all actually live, not the one the government and media want to think we're inhabiting - pleading to Europe to give them another chance, with no further "Non!"s, crying out for a future. It is almost intolerably emotional and makes me think of how much promise appeared in my view of 1975, what I was taught by my parents and teachers then, and how all of it has now been wrecked and destroyed. If the Manic Street Preachers ever come across this piece, I'm certain they'd agree with its outlook.*</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">*A curious but logical counterpart for Welsh music of 1975 - not simply <a href="https://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2012/03/max-boyce-we-all-had-doctors-papers.html">"Rhondda Grey" by Max Boyce</a>, but also <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6YLcAFME1ZpF8s5GlYkQan?si=22e7b5e68333476a">"Leaving It Up To You" by John Cale</a>, who fed that anger directly into <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/7xg7u99lilTCPbaRfnYuy6?si=xgHh4n64TSyDXd95Xnv7Dw">another important record of later that year</a> - and the boy looked at Tammy (who returned to Wales after a long spell in New Zealand, and will celebrate her 79th birthday two months hence) and handed her a branch of cold flame.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">**T.J. actually sings "But <i>love </i>is such a foolish mask" which is an obvious mistake, but I think it was charming that the producer (Robin Blanchflower) let it stand, since it's a sign of humanity. You wouldn't get that in today's fearsomely airbrushed world.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-91365730931917840402021-04-07T05:39:00.001-07:002021-04-07T05:40:45.381-07:00DO IT!: Van McCoy: "The Hustle"<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
is nothing quite like waking up to frankly miserable weather/news only to hear
about it and then be thrown by an overly upbeat announcer telling you to cheer
up and dance and get moving and DANCE ---<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Disco
is a fine thing, but like everything it does have its place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been more than suggested that it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> popular music everyone likes and the
one music which people turn to when things are relentlessly tiresome or
numbing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it wasn’t music for just
<i>anyone </i>at the beginning; in fact it was music for those who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liked</i> to dance and also a refuge for
those who were not exactly welcome elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
early 1975 Van McCoy was working on an album to be called (of course) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disco</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Baby</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In need of some
inspiration information, he sent his business partner Charles Kipps to a disco to see if he
could pick up any moves or grooves, and he brought back two dancers
from the Adam’s Apple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>McCoy watched
these dancers do the Hustle right there and then and was stunned and a little
puzzled, but fell <i>hard</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day
(yes, the next day) “The Hustle” was recorded, and the rest is history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have, inadvertently, reached the second
half of the 70s, the disco half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fog
has lifted and the sun is shining and all is elegant and glamorous and
exciting, emotional even.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dance that
came up from the Bronx gangs, the Latin Hustle (close to salsa) has bumped into
some very seasoned studio musicians and a composer who clearly wants to write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> disco song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Make
no mistake: this song is just one of
many varieties of Hustle, but it takes OFF.
It’s catchy, simple, sweet – kind of like Philadelphia International, but
lighter and determinedly open somehow.
It is an anthem, an ode to the spirit of New York City, which was
bankrupt but continued nevertheless. It
bumps and soars and sweeps and entreats you to join in and dance, never exactly
telling you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how</i> to do the Hustle, but
just to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> it. It is the little engine that could's triumphant lap. It's emotional because McCoy had been in the music business for so long as a writer and producer and this dance appears one night and YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAH "The Hustle" comes to him, as if in a fairy tale, and the joy he has had in creating it is right there in the music. It is devotional music in a way, a tribute, and all it asks is that you dance however you want to and voila - you are doing the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNu9WphAD20">Hustle</a>. (It is significant that it's a dance for two people, though I always imagine the housewife in Des Moines dancing in her kitchen, as well as professional dancers in Hustle contests across New York City.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">McCoy lived to see disco thrive and prosper, and was working on a 12" version of "The Hustle" when he died in 1979 - DJs wanted a 12" of it, which goes to show you what an instant classic it became. That no one expected the song to do very much business is the cherry; it was merely supposed to be filler. Thus I cannot claim McCoy to be a prophet but he inadvertently set the second half of the 70s agenda and there were those who (in the fullness of time, not now) bitterly resented him and disco in general. But I don't think these people deserve my writing about them. The happiness here erases all that, supercedes it, has already gone past it. There is no looking back for disco now, and those who insist on playing it at 7am are, as irritating as they can be, doing everyone a favor by reminding people to dance, the Hustle or otherwise.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Next up: the umbrella underneath which all other musics stand.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 349.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 18pt; tab-stops: 161.25pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-49156036822716803932020-12-23T07:14:00.024-08:002020-12-23T07:29:24.526-08:00Why Cry When You Can Dance? : “I Wanna Dance Wit Choo”: Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes/ “Try To Remember/The Way We Were”: Gladys Knight and the Pips
“Nostalgia has always been a bit of a bunko scam.” David Rakoff <div><br /></div><div> The current situation has made people nostalgic, but what is it they are nostalgic for? This is the big question, perhaps too big for this modest blog. Is it the 1970s, a time of one actual/manufactured outrage and disaster after another? As a girl growing up in this time I have (for personal reasons that don’t really fit in here) very little nostalgia for this period, as so much of it was so monochrome and repetitive when it wasn’t disturbing and frightening. Yet even there, you can see how for so many anything distracting or weird or indeed nostalgic was attractive, even necessary.* </div><div><br /></div><div>“I Wanna Dance Wit Choo” was the second hit single for Bronx-born Sir Monti Rock III and his backing singers – including Four Season Bob Crewe and his writing pal Kenny Nolan, who both dug the disco scene and very much wanted to get involved. I could go into why disco was popular and the people who went to discos, but let’s just say at this point people were already starting to see disco was a ‘thing’ and they weren’t just male-only spaces as they had been before. At the same time, this is a camp <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN5bio8xXp0">single</a> if there ever was one, (with Sir Monti sounding like David Johansen, ranting in English and Spanish**) and it can be heard as either very enthusiastic or kind of annoying, depending on how much you knew about the already outrageous public appearances of Monti Rock (who had been on tv regularly since the 60s, charming Johnny Carson on the <i>Tonight Show</i>.) That said, Disco Tex and His Sex-o-lettes definitely made personal appearances in actual discos, telling people to open up, loosen up and have fun and dance - it's disco time, baby!*** </div><div><br /></div><div>While this single got to #2 on the Luxembourg chart, Disco Tex and his entourage were never going to stay around for long – one more album (<i>Manhattan</i> <i>Millionaire</i> – but of course) and he was off making movies and Crewe and Nolan had already written “Lady Marmalade” and “My Eyes Adored You” which have both fared much better over time than the kitschy, outspoken man from the Bronx. People remember (or they lazily let the radio/media remember for them) certain things, but not others. The 70s was a weird decade, and this being as decisively not played as other obscure #2s from this time shows how people want to look back, for sure, but not that much. </div><div><br /></div><div>Also getting to #2 on the Luxembourg chart, Gladys Knight and the Pips (though the Pips are taking a break here; it’s just Gladys) certainly know what nostalgia and looking back are really about. Knight mentions ‘the good ol’ days’ in a way that show that while she knows the pleasures and satisfactions of looking back, they are themselves a bit fatuous and she wonders if the children of the mid-70s will look back at this time – a time of real hardship in Harlem and all of NYC as it was declared bankrupt – if even this time will be recalled with aw-c’mon-it-was-great-really fondness. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is a live recording from the Apollo; Knight’s audience is not exactly looking back at the same world as those who heard this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ70nOYxyME">song</a> in the context of its movie. The classic line about “what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget” (thank you, Alan and Marilyn Bergman) is true, but I know from my own experience that it’s a privilege to ‘choose’ to forget something. It’s far more common (for me) to have to be vigilant about not recalling things and being active in forgiving people in my past in order to move forwards. Let the past be the past. Knight knows people will talk about how much better things were, but she also knows it’s a folly, a way of avoiding dealing with the here and now. </div><div><br /></div><div>But people who are living in tough times want fun – and if nostalgia is a way out, they will take it. The 70s was in a way a long process of trying to escape from itself, done in part by trying to remember. Though again, what is being remembered? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Up next: It’s not how you do it, it’s just that you do it. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Nostalgia for the 50s was at a high-tide point round about now, what with American Graffiti more or less begetting Happy Days. The 70s would go back even further in the next year or so. </div><div><br /></div><div>** His real name is Joseph Montanez Jr. </div><div><br /></div><div>***The Pet Shop Boys song “Electricity” directly mentions Disco Tex – sung from the point of view of perhaps Neil Tennant himself?</div>Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-5858382084960756032020-11-25T09:20:00.000-08:002020-11-25T09:20:16.487-08:00Maximal to Minimal: Minnie Riperton: "Lovin You"<p>Now I feel we have reached a song that divides people to this day – is it good? Is it unbearably twee and girly and yuck? Certainly the latter was my reaction to it once I had grown up a bit, had my own radio and so on. For all I know this is how some still respond to it, because of Riperton’s high voice, because of the birds tweeting away, because they think music (particularly by women) must somehow involve suffering, and there is no suffering here. There is no struggle here, no abandonment, no imminent collapse or mourning. It is all love, optimism and joy.
</p><p>I listen to this now and carefully note that this is a heroic tugboat of a song. Happiness with a strong voice (a coloratura voice with four octaves) gliding along emphatically as well as gracefully. She looks forward to the future, knowing in her heart it will always be springtime, there will always be birds chirping and sunshine and and....
</p><p>Let me back up a bit in Minnie’s story. She met Richard Rudolph as a young woman in the group Rotary Connection, a band on the Chess label which had Charles Stepney producing and (rests gracefully on sadly non-existent <em>chaise</em> <em>longue</em>) among their albums there was one of covers from 1969 called <em>Songs</em> which kludged rock and soul together in a way that still sounds startling. Then two years later came <em>Hello Love</em> and the abundanza of “I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun.” Stepney really should have been nominated for Producer of the Year because WHAT WITH THE WHAT NOW and IT CAN BE DONE BUT ONLY I CAN DO IT reasons. But Producer of the Year didn’t exist then (Thom Bell was the first to win one in 1975). </p><p>In between these albums her first solo album, <em>Come Into My Garden</em>, was released in 1970 (produced by Stepney). Rotary Connection had had some bad luck (declining Woodstock, for instance, as it was too far away – instead they opened for The Stooges closer to home) and Stepney was determined to get Riperton’s voice <em>heard</em>. He tried, with the amazing “Les Fleur” but the label she was on (a subsidiary of Chess) was floundering and eventually everyone left for Los Angeles to make a fresh start of things, save for Riperton, who basically needed a rest and wanted to settle down, moving to Florida with Rudolph in 1972. However, Riperton was coaxed into getting back into music a year later (lured inevitably to Los Angeles).
</p><p>Riperton started to work with Stevie Wonder as a backing singer, and then he produced her album <em>Perfect Angel</em>, where “Lovin’ You” appears. After the ornate and sometimes flat-out overwhelming Stepney productions, Wonder made things simple – just a few birds to add to the perpetual springtime of the song, with Riperton’s voice front and center, as opposed to being part of a chorus. It’s an easy song that Rudolph and Riperton wrote, a kind of lullaby to their baby Maya (you can hear Riperton sing her name at the end). </p><p>
Is there something guileless about this song? I’m not sure there is, though it certainly can seem that way to hipsters who disdain open sentiment. The remarkable thing is what happened after this was a hit – she made more albums, continued to perform and at the same time had to live with the diagnosis of breast cancer, which doctors told her at first was going to end her life in six months. She had a double mastectomy and kept right on going, becoming a spokeswoman for breast cancer awareness and even recorded her last album while in great pain – presumably at her own insistence. </p><p>She died at the age of 31 in 1979, an indomitable force and an inspiration to many musicians (Mariah Carey, Kate Bush and of course Stevie Wonder) and the women who were also dealing with cancer at the time – not a taboo subject these days, but one hardly mentioned in the mid-70s. This song is a song of love, a heroic and happy song of the mother and wife, ultimately a song about being alive itself as a joy.
</p><p>
Next: There’s looking backwards and then there’s taking stock.
</p><p> </p><p>
*Could someone at Ace Records do a Charles Stepney compilation please? It’s way overdue and there are all sorts of music he did while at Chess. Thanks!
</p><p> </p><p class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KhaUnHJjS8A" width="320" youtube-src-id="KhaUnHJjS8A"></iframe></p><p><br /></p>Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-25046048762312939762020-11-09T04:57:00.000-08:002020-11-09T04:57:42.966-08:00Animal Crackers pts. 2 and 3: The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog: "Fox On the Run" Sweet and "Love Me Love My Dog" Peter Shelley<p>For the foreseeable future I am going to have to speed up some here at <i>MSBWT</i> in order to get out of the emotional ditch known as ‘the mid-70s’ – perhaps you feel the same way? Though when (for lack of a better word) landmark #2s come along, I will devote more time to them. </p><p>Thus, these two very different songs have to be together. They both point to something – the end of the Glam Slam and what happens next.
The Sweet, a bit at a loss as to what to do (and politely told by their label to have another hit already), found a song on their album they wrote themselves, rejigged it and lo and behold it was a worldwide hit, just at the time when Glam was pretty much over and this tougher style was...no, I can’t use that word just yet. </p><p>They continued to exhaust themselves touring and relying on writing their own material, eventually hitting it big with “Love Is Like Oxygen” in 1978. That is the first time I heard them – however that song is no fun* whereas "Fox On The Run" (not as odd as The Hollies’ “After The Fox” of course) rocks and jumps and struts around its Glam victory lap before disappearing, all shiny and loud and stompy as ever.
</p><p>
Peter Shelley (I’m sure he’s heard all the comments) once wrote songs for Alvin Stardust, but as Glam faded he and Marty Wilde wrote about his dog instead, about how anyone interested in him should appreciate his dog too. Which is.... fine. Every sentiment can get written about, though in this case the song (an <em>NME </em>#2, posted below) has disappeared from the common memory just as “Sugar Candy Kisses” did, hiding somewhere on a European compilation which is lingering in an attic. The song is sincere at least (he appeared on <em>Top of the Pops</em> to perform this song with his loyal dog by his side) and it does add to the odd number of mid-70s songs about animals, including “Shannon” and “Mandy” (originally) and “Wildfire” which I think is about a horse that disappears into the West.** </p><p>These were anomalies for the time, little signals of the decade as it turned quite decisively to something <em>else</em>. Disco, reggae, these guys from Germany called Kraftwerk, the Rollers – this replaced Glam***, along with the Soulboy contingent who were into...well, anything from Bowie to jazz-funk to Northern Soul. Any casual look at the charts from this time will show that what was going on wasn’t boring, though if you were fifteen or so you might find a lot of what I just mentioned too...sophisticated? Safe? The very complicated situation (or you could say grown-up) of music meant certain sectors felt a bit ignored and left out.</p><p>This is addressed eventually, but for now there’s a homely man and his dog, and a fox disappearing over the horizon. </p><p> </p><p>
Next: The birds and the bees et les fleurs.</p><p> </p><p>
*It’s them trying to be New Wave, and failing miserably.</p><p>
**Loudon Wainwright III’s “Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road” sort of fits in here, more or less. </p><p>
***Not that Glam goes away entirely – there will always be echoes of it here and there, the most prominent of them showing up in the due course of time.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c15O8cQhrbc" width="320" youtube-src-id="c15O8cQhrbc"></iframe></div><br /><p> </p>Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-74918421254283602302020-06-17T01:34:00.000-07:002020-06-17T02:53:53.265-07:00Animal Crackers pt. 1: The Goodies: "The Funky Gibbon"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“This House stinks of racism!” Cornelius Cardew, October 1981<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“We had marvellous musicians on those sessions, but they
couldn't get it. They knew what I was sort of trying to do, but I probably
listened to that sort of thing more than they did, and it was driving us nuts,
so we sent the drummer and the bass-player and the guitarist home. And I had a
keyboard player called Dave Macrae, who'd played with Matching Mole and Robert
Wyatt and people like that - governor player - and he started playing some
clavinet, very Stevie Wonder-type feel to it, and I said, 'That's fine; could
you do a synth-bass on it?'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
<span style="background: white;">And then I literally started whacking the top of
the grand piano. So the actual rhythm-track of 'The Funky Gibbon' has only got
me and Dave on it - he plays clavinet and synth-bass and we miked up the top of
the piano. Then we got the horn section of Gonzales playing a Memphis
Horns-type thing. It was lovely for me to be able to use musicians I liked and
try to reproduce sounds which I also listened to. And then put the stupid song
over the top of it. The idea that all that effort went into 'The Funky Gibbon'!”
Bill Oddie. as quoted in Alwyn Turner's <a href="https://thelionandunicorn.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/revive-45-april-1975/" target="_blank">blog</a> The Lion and the Unicorn.</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I recently saw
a comment about irony and music – its author very clearly stated that he did
not appreciate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you know
what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> understand this point of view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most great music does not have a side; it is not trying to do two things
at once, though it is possible to hear a song for some time and not know what
it is really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that case, you might get upset that you
yourself did not realize this or you might project this anger on to the song
itself or the person who told you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Most songs are
very directly what they say they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However
it is noticeable that anyone trying to express something by saying it with
irony or in an indirect way is usually saying something the public at large may
not want to hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is entirely
possible to enjoy a song and not get its irony*, and irony comes in many
levels, of course...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I did not
expect “The Funky Gibbon” to be in one of these spirals of irony, but it is the
1970s, when juxtapositions were all over the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beginning is simple enough – jazz/funk
fan Bill Oddie wanted his comedy troupe The Goodies to have a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQfecoM1kpo" target="_blank">song</a> for their hit tv show,
and came up with something suitably dumb lyrically – the trio had an
association with gibbons, doing a song called “Stuff The Gibbon” when they were
on the BBC radio show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m Sorry I’ll Read
That Again</i> in the 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I will
also note that before they made total fools of themselves on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Goodies</i>, Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim
Brooke-Taylor had a tv show called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not So
Much A Programme, More A Way Of Life</i> which was a faux-documentary show that hardly ever
gets mentioned.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Oddie was on
the fringe of the UK jazz scene and had the good fortune to work with the Mike
Westbrook Band’s Dave Macrae and Gonzales’ horn section, as explained above.**<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song reached #2 on the Luxembourg chart
and got them on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Top of the Pops</i> – I
doubt if they expected the song to do so well, but the kids loved it and so it
happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a catchy song and you
could imagine it spreading around to the parents of children, to certain
ears....<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">...to the ears
of a certain composer who had been in various modernist trenches for many
years, doggedly loyal to political ideas which may or may not have helped his
music; a man who led a group of musicians (the Scratch Orchestra) that worked
bottom-up and was too avant garde to be mistaken for another early 1970s conglomeration of
musicians, Centipede.***<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1975 the
composer was beginning to shift his thinking to writing popular hard-left songs
for people to hear and be moved by (politically at least).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take the ideas straight to the people, with
language and melodies they can sing and understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Cornelius
Cardew’s need to make overtly and transparently popular music was not perhaps
what was expected of him, but it is what he (once a disciple of Stockhausen)
wanted to do – and so in 1977 he wrote “Smash the Social Contract.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the chorus:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">So
smash, smash, smash the social contract<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s
the cry of workers all over the land<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 162.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">No to class collaboration<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">We’ve
sorted out your lies and deception<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 98.25pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Sure
to be a hit, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well in a way, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(And yes, the chorus’ melody sounds an awful lot like...”The Funky
Gibbon.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cardew’s instinct – that he
had to bring his political ideas into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">popular</i>
music, not just live them with whatever free-jazz <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avant garde</i> music he was doing for the greater good (as
self-effacing/self-satisfying being in AMM or the Scratch Orchestra must have
been) was in keeping with the times.**** I don’t know if he wanted this to be a
hit or just something played to striking workers; I don’t even know if he knew
about the Goodies, though having two sons the right age to be into them must
have helped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seemed happy to compose
lively tunes to, well, non-rhyming and just clunky but sincere revolutionary lyrics. His being arrested for disturbing Parliament (during a speech by Enoch Powell, quoted above) shows how committed he was...I can't say his works have been hits, exactly, but Cardew is a fine example of English rebelliousness and I sense the establishment still isn't really ready for him yet.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I
don’t know if Oddie ever heard this song, but the whole idea of the one song
lifting from the other would have been (I’m guessing) more amusing to him than
anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t really sue
someone poor and Cardew at this point – while in demand and travelling around
spreading the word – wasn’t exactly wealthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">And so we have
the story of a dumb but reasonably catchy song entering the revolutionary atmosphere,
fitting into a lively song about the deconstruction of the world as we know
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> If this can happen, what else is possible?</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Next up: Exit, pursued by foxes.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">*”Good Times”
by Chic is the gold standard here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly
I won’t be writing about it as it only reached #5 in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NME</i> and regular charts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">**I can imagine
he wanted something between Rufus Thomas’ “Do The Funky Chicken” and Stevie
Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothin.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">***Both groups
had a short lifespan, both groups had (live, at least) Brian Eno as one of
their members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coincidentally, the
Oblique Strategies cards Eno helped to make appeared around this time:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>go <a href="http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html" target="_blank">here </a>to get a random card if you
like...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">****Cardew, by
the way, had no interest in punk – he called The Clash “reactionary” and I
can’t imagine he had much time for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen
Smith</i> either. This despite him looking a bit like Joe Strummer in the early 1970s.</span></span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-70106897807405719012020-06-04T01:30:00.000-07:002020-06-04T01:30:21.338-07:00A Cookie Crumbles: Guys 'n' Dolls: "There's A Whole Lot Of Loving"
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I sometimes remember the 1970s as a mostly regular time, but
with jarring oppositions too. It was in many ways a bluntly realistic era, but
there were a lot of very determinedly happy things to balance that out,
including the smiley button (I wore a variation on it myself as a child), not
to mention a lot of cheery upbeat music, including this song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I could go down the path of picking a
side in the perpetual tug-of-war between oh-so-sensitive singer-songwriters and
the manufactured production line of producer/songwriters/singers*, but this
song would not exactly fit in to the debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oh it has songwriters (Chris Arnold, David Martin and Geoff Morrow) and singers (Tony Burrows and Clare Torry)
but uh, wait a minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It came from a
commercial?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For <em>cookies</em>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yes, we have reached the stage where a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsbSPLKgPP4" target="_blank">song</a> from a McVitie's fruit
shortcake tv ad can be recorded and released as a hit single.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song itself has nothing to do with
cookies and a lot to do with the natural hugeness of the United States (the
songwriters were American).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
proper song, not a jingle fleshed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The loving going on is <em>abstract</em>; the love could be for anyone, but it’s
heartfelt and the wholesome goodness of the song’s sing-a-long style matches
the Hoover Dam mention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be straight
out of a musical, though usually there’s a bit more plot in a stage song.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I don’t know if this was expected to be a hit – but it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, what to do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On very short notice, a group of male and female singers
were put together so they could appear as Guys 'n' Dolls for promotional
purposes – miming the song and dancing on variety shows (one of them being
Julie Forsyth, daughter of Bruce – do you see how showbiz this is?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> There was no time to re-record the song with the new group, however. </span>It worked, at least at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">first</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main problem was
that the lead singer of the group, Dominic<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Grant</span>, didn’t sound anything like Tony
Burrows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sounded more like a wannabe
Scott Walker, completely pointless as the actual Scott Walker existed and at
this time was plotting the return of The Walker Brothers.** <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The group had its problems as you might expect and
two of the six were dismissed for (I am guessing) wanting to do things in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">different</i> way. Guys 'n' Dolls were
essentially there to fill the gap before The New Seekers reconvened, before the
Brotherhood of Man made this kind of music uncool for a whole generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> They had one more hit in the UK but were far more popular in Europe, where they had hits right into the 1980s.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This scam, if you like, did have one unintended
consequence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years after their
being relieved from Guys 'n' Dolls, Theresa Bazar – the female of the pair –
approached the studio bass player, one Trevor Horn, to see if he would
be interested in working with her and David Van Day, the male of the pair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was and so they did – as the duo
Dollar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And so from late 1974, the tiny seeds of something <em>different</em> were being sown. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> Next up: keep the red flag flying, kids!</o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; tab-stops: 122.25pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: #2c3338; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">*There
are times when I don’t mind singer-songwriters, and then there are times I just
want to avoid them as much as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t know how common this is amongst those who grew up in the 70s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">**There
are certain voices that are inimitable, and Walker’s is one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a song by The Herd where the lead
singer does a Walker-style vocal and it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">awful</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder Peter Frampton left to start Humble Pie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-53195213076896028972020-05-04T07:38:00.000-07:002020-05-04T07:38:14.896-07:00When Is A Song An Unsong?: Mac and Katie Kissoon: "Sugar Candy Kisses"
<br />
What is it like to listen to a song that has fundamentally been...forgotten?
This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCQ5R4RjkJ8" target="_blank">song </a>is essentially no longer part of what I (guess) is the musical “canon.”
Of course this may not be a bad thing, but in a time when people seem to obsess
over the past in a way which is unhealthy (look at the current album charts –
how much of the music is from the past or are greatest hits from the past? A
lot) it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rare</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are me, trying to find the new is
increasingly difficult but the past seems to loom and even interrupt, making
the new (and interesting) harder and harder to locate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><br />
<br />
Do people deliberately like bad things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do people deliberately like <em>mediocre</em> things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These were my first thoughts upon regarding
this song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I have had a bit more
time to think these things over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This song
is neither bad nor mediocre; but it is in a unique and unenviable position of
being utterly forgotten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finding a 70s
compilation with this song on it – and there are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so</i> many 70s compilations – is nearly impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been virtually erased from music, been
turned into a non-song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An unsong, if
you will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a rare feat, as so much
of radio (in the UK at least) is fixated on the 70s, as the album charts to
this day show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost all songs from the
70s which were big hits (that can still be played, of course) are still being
given airtime somewhere (if not on Radio 2 then on 6 Music or elsewhere).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overwhelming narrative is not just on the
radio but on these compilations; for a song to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> be available on a Disky (Dutch) box set is saying
something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is saying only Europe
still cares; the UK has effectively turned its back on this song and Mac and
Katie Kissoon, denying its existence and leading us, dear reader, straight into
the void that I somehow instinctively knew was at the heart of the 70s UK
single charts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With this song we are
beyond the edge; we are in the world where things disappear, and must go forth
carefully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not The Fog as much
as what The Fog has been hiding. <br />
<br />
Of course, there are many songs which managed to get into the charts which
are, for any number of reasons, no longer played – singles are, lest we ever
forget, supposed to be evanescent things, things which strike at the moment
acutely, moments that reach out to the listener directly as if taking up a
conversation, adding their voices to the discussion. (By the way, while I remain ambivalent about the 70s personally, I think they are far more interesting than radio generally lets on.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can be good or bad or indeed mediocre,
but they all hope (or the songwriters and performers do) to be at least remembered
and even celebrated. The music industry loves (in part because this is how it
survives) to remind us of the past, even if it is just the recent past of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NOW</i> series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
For a song to be left out of all this is a puzzle, particularly as these two
were already part of the UK <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>musical world
– Katie Kissoon had been recording since the 60s (under the odd name Peanut)
solo and with her brother Jerry (stage name Mac).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This song was their big chance for a hit in
the UK, and as it was as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deliberately</i>
written* as The Rubettes’ “Sugar Baby Love” and it worked, getting to #2 on Radio
Luxembourg and #3 in the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(That a
love song is being sung by siblings was something blithely ignored at the time
I am guessing, especially since Donny and Marie were also popular.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
I can think of a few reasons this song has been...left behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds as if they are <em>singing</em> the song –
their voices are genuine and sweet enough, but somehow still there is no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">punctum</i>. It is, even by 1975 standards, a bit square;
like a music box it dutifully revolves and then fades abruptly once it’s
done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is professional music, done by
professionals; Mac and Katie Kissoon are and have been very much part of the
business as in-demand backing singers** since their heyday (mostly in Europe)
was over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are doing their best with
a song that is just too rote and routine to spark any actual fervour, the sort
of song done on variety shows. <br />
<br />
Ultimately this song shows that just being a hit is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b> enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being in the
charts at all as we have seen is not really enough either. There is something <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amiss</i> about the charts themselves at
this time – which I will address in due course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A whole <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">other</i> thing is quietly
and determinedly already existing and growing, music which is not perhaps as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">technically</i> good as this...but that will
not, in time, matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alongside this in
February 1975 Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of the Conservative party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The end of “the 1970s” is not in sight...yet.<br />
<br />
<br />
Next up: a different pair with a different future.<br />
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* The composer credits are Bickerton/Waddington, who also wrote "Nothing But A Heartache" by The Flirtations. <br />
<br />
**Katie is a favourite with Van Morrison in particular, though I should note
she has also worked with the KLF and Dexy's Midnight Runners.. I should also note that as Mac and Katie they
had the first crack at “Love Will Keep Us Together” before the more famous
version, and had the US hit version of "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep."<br />
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-3657433771452642112019-11-11T05:43:00.003-08:002019-11-11T05:43:59.655-08:00Radio Romance: Helen Reddy : "Angie Baby"It is easy enough to state that this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQKyGt_I5L4" target="_blank">song</a> was a transatlantic hit (#1 in late '74 and here #2 on Radio Luxembourg in February '75); it is also easy enough to state that the songwriter, Alan O'Day, worked on the lyrics for some time, even showing them to his therapist* to get his/her advice on them.<br />
<br />
But what is the song <em>about</em>? No one, even O'Day and Reddy, who you would think would know, don't. This is actually rather <em>refreshing</em>, as how many songs actually seem to be flattened or reduced by having their meaning/origin explained? It almost even takes away some of the power - the listener's power - in understanding and interpreting a song. So my version of this song may not be yours, but here goes...<br />
<br />
<br />
A girl loves music, loves it so much and thus it takes over her life. Is she
touched, a little crazy in the head? For some reason she doesn't go to
school but gets to stay at home, in her room** listening to her radio all
day. She whirls around with one song, one fantastic partner, after
another. She is, as Sister Sledge will later attest, Lost In
Music. Whether she knows this or not isn't stated, but Reddy's voice
is always present to hint, to insinuate, to make the case for Angie that she is
a "special lady" and not one to be messed with. <br />
<br />
A girl's attachment to music is a strong thing. The power of music matches her own power, which can be so great and yet so ephemeral, but always is <strong>there</strong>, and the radio becomes a means of possessing this power in a way, of having means to escape even if you are shut-in at home, it seems in the song for Angie's own good. <br />
<br />
But there's a boy, a ne'er-do-well, who wants Angie and looks in on her and sees only her body, of course. He doesn't know about her "really nice place to go" but perhaps knows she's a bit "touched." This boy wants and gets into her room, only to find himself, his very soul, spun around and somehow disappearing into the radio, never to be seen again. The radio keeps him - he's not dead, exactly, but he can never escape. She has a lover; she has her radio; she has her land of make-believe...or is it? <br />
<br />
Even here I can say that the radio, that music itself, somehow defends and protects Angie, that she who is so utterly devoted has her just reward, and that the confusing, fuzzy and emotionally and psychologically profound reactions a girl has to music are all here. The way a guitar and drums and voice can hit your nerves, <em>all</em> your nerves, so that you become altered, even liberated, by what happens to you when you hear them. The effect is instantaneous and all those radio stations who didn't need any encouragement to play this song (radio stations love songs which mention radios, after all) maybe didn't get the whole subversive sexual undertow here, or maybe they very much did. <br />
<br />
A girl and her radio; a radio romance.<br />
<br />
Next up: it's the Valentine's Day massacre.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*Hardly anything more 70s than doing this, though how much popular culture - through books, music, movies - was about young women who were deemed "odd" or "weird" or flat-out "crazy" in this decade has no doubt been written about, but also sort of written off. The male/masculine version of the 70s has become the default understanding of the decade, with only a few women accepted as part of that male world, and this goes for all media, really. I know this is a super-obvious point, but it always bears making.<br />
<br />
** How much would I have loved to stay in my room say circa November 1981 and listen to the radio all day? A lot....Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-61627796583791451582019-10-02T08:41:00.000-07:002019-10-02T08:41:42.727-07:00Very Strange Vibration: Gloria Gaynor: "Never Can Say Goodbye"
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are few moments better than the one where confusion
and doubt are conquered, even eliminated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
W</span>e are in disco when this particular and precise emotion happens
to make sense, as disco is about that joy, a joy that magnetic and crushing and
inexplicable, an energy that cannot be denied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That it comes in with Max Roach-inspired drumming, swirling strings and
an I’ve-lived-this-and-we-can-share-it vocal from Gloria Gaynor (who sounds as
caught up in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfb6nYM-fLE" target="_blank">song</a> as anyone) is just as well. We are far from the laid-back pleasures of "Rock Your Baby" or the get-down Miami horn blasts of KC & the Sunshine Band here. Gaynor is singing to be <em>heard</em>, and that this is a Jackson 5 song seems to make no impression on her whatsoever. She is making this her <em>own</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What those who bought this en masse may or may have not
known was that “Never Can Say Goodbye” was the middle of a trilogy from her album of the time – a “mix”
really – by Tom Moulton*, which starts with “Honey Bee” and ends with “Reach Out
I’ll Be There.**”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This mix was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">first</i> to appear on an album – let’s just
pause to ponder this – and capitalized on Moulton’s ability as a mixer to
really get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">into</i> the songs – not in a
complicated way, just in a way that was supposed to elongate the song, and have
Gaynor’s voice in your head *even when she wasn’t audibly there*. Dancing in
your head? That the very male world of disco (I have been reading Peter Shapiro’s
book on it and early discos were definitely male territory, with disco
becoming a more female-friendly phenomenon later on) should have a woman taking
on Levi Stubbs’ aria of a song and making it sound like the veritable audio
version of the last helicopter out of Vietnam is, to say the least, quite
something. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The power of the song is to worry away in the verses and then dismiss these worries in the chorus with a rising "I love you ssssooooooooooo" that has in it right there a real vulnerability/strength moment which disco (when it wasn't just exhorting you the listener to dance, which it often did) does so well. Can you stop? Is stopping on the dancefloor possible? Tom Moulton didn't want you to stop, and put this together with oh say Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind" and it won't stop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next: A radio, a woman, a man. </span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> *Tom Moulton is the first person to use a 12" single to do the pressing of a song, giving the song more space to <em>breathe</em>, sound better and of course have more <em>time</em> to let the song be itself. That he found this out by accident is charming. </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">**We are not done with Motown yet and in a few entries the topic of jazz will appear, with Motown popping up unexpectedly.</span></o:p></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-23963387058055180882019-09-06T10:09:00.000-07:002019-09-06T10:09:06.323-07:00The Right Time: John Holt: "Help Me Make It Through The Night"
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the contributing factors towards 1975 being the
amazing year it was has to be the general <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">openness</i>
of the charts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old stalwarts of pop
and rock were still around, but new things, new permutations of things,
abounded in the early 70s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short,
anything went, and amidst the joy/chaos there were more than a few songs that
showed vulnerability and a slight sense of loneliness and even tiredness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Country and reggae were old friends, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0vxnKrbwLk" target="_blank">here</a> they sound just right together.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">By early 1975 the high that Trojan Records had been riding
was coming to an end, but label star John Holt was wise/lucky enough to have a hit album <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1000 Volts of Holt</i> (the cover screams
early 70s, right down to the paisley/plaid combination which Holt pulls off
because star power) come out before the financially-struggling Trojan collapsed altogether in May, bought out by Saga Records. (This
could be, as is suggested in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bass</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Culture</i>, that the English kids who dug
reggae c. 1971 were no longer interested in it, it being passé.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Help Me Make It Through The Night” was released in late
1974 and got to #2 on the Luxembourg chart as a crossover reggae/lovers rock
hit that was solid musically and sung with warmth and ease by Holt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That it was so sophisticated was due to the
English producer Tony Ashfield, who had been involved in Jamaican music for
some time and had worked with Holt on a previous album, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Further You Look</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
was 1972 though, and while it was a big hit in Jamaica it wasn’t elsewhere –
hence Ashfield and Holt decided to do another album, one with proven songs like
this one, which had already been a hit for Gladys Knight & The Pips as well
as others, including a reggae version by Duke Parker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
song suited his voice and modest mien* and its devil-may-care-desperate lyrics
somehow work in with the longing in his voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I wonder if this song would have made it to number one had all the shops
it sold in – not just Boots or Woolworths – were counted?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the meantime, Ashfield and Holt split over differences, Holt continuing to record in Jamaica both in the lovers rock style and doing more political songs. This song marks a moment when someone who is a worldwide star finally gets his due, and had things been different...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next up: Music, non-stop!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*Holt turned down a certain song which author Max Romeo
eventually had to record himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ahem.
</span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-15731694511463711372019-08-21T06:25:00.001-07:002019-08-21T06:25:25.145-07:00Remembering the Forgotten: Ralph McTell: "Streets of London"
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have now arrived at the end of 1974; we are about to
enter the then to-some scary area known as 1975.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A time of big decisions and already there's a sense
that whatever will become of this decade will be worked out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Nixon era has already ended and the Vietnam War is drawing to a
close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the UK there’s the growing
sense of unease coupled with two events that are responses to that unease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This unease continues to this day and in fact
its crushing and terrible logic is attempting to be worked out even as I write
this. There is hope however; there is always hope....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">"Streets of London" is the sort of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2r97Fo_HWE" target="_blank">song</a> that sticks; McTell is not singing of any general sense of loneliness but <em>about</em> specific people and <em>to</em> a specific person - a friend of his who was a heroin addict. It is the realistic loneliness that stands quite opposite to the song which kept it at #2, Mud's "Lonely This Christmas." It is a gentle, near classical song with a touch of folk; country blues, even. The power of it is the musical simplicity which acts as a welcoming warm hug of a frame around the four people depicted, all of them alone, all desolate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">McTell's voice is warm too, familiar, as opposed to the (at this point) recently departed Nick Drake, who was more unworldly and yes, seductive. McTell is taking the listener by the hand into the streets of London, starting at the Surrey Street Market in Croydon (where he was raised), ending on the Thames by the Seaman's Mission with a veteran (WWI? WWII?) who has been cast aside, just as the bag lady and the T.S. Eliot/Beckettian figure who does nothing but drink tea all night to pass the time. These are all people who are alive but whom society does not want to recognize, who are yesterday's news. The addict is gently shown those who are lost, in darkness, wandering and sadly friendless. I would like to think that some heard this song and it opened their hearts, or as McTell wanted to do, changed their minds. Not through preaching but through the powerful examples that especially at Christmastime are a reminder to look out for others and to be more considerate. That is the real meaning of the season as it happens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That it took three times, three different recordings, to make this song a hit shows how sometimes a song just has to appear at the right time (and in the right way) to make its impact. It has become a standard folk song (recorded first in '69, produced by Gus Dudgeon) so much so that punk (ah yes punk - we'll get to that in enough time) band the Anti-Nowhere League did their own cover, with altered lyrics (mais oui) "Let me grab you by the hair and drag you through the streets of London, I'll show you something that'll really make you sick" was heartily approved of by McTell himself. The song is McTell's main legacy, one he has accepted as his gift to the world, even as he continues to write and record albums to this day. Can the world change because of a song? Can it have an impact beyond itself? The answer is, as always, with the listener. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next up: Lord have mercy!</span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-21852475135313632852019-08-05T02:55:00.000-07:002019-08-05T02:55:33.713-07:00You've Come A Long Way: "Rock Me Gently" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet"
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now then, where was I?....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You may or indeed may not know that I have had a long break
from this blog as my husband was diagnosed and tested and then finally operated
on last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a big and
rarely-done operation and was, thank goodness, a success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent a lot of last year either at work,
shopping or in the process of visiting him in hospital, which I did nearly
daily until I knew he was okay physically and mentally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2018 was a hot summer; a summer of record;
but I was blanked out by the end of the day, able eventually to listen to music
(impossible at first), eat dinner, rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And then phone early the next morning to see how he was overnight, and
it would then all start over again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now however, he is back at work, and my brave (possibly),
unheralded and amazingly unrivalled blog can continue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are new here – hello!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you like it and have time to catch up
with what I have written already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if
you have read it before, you know how it goes...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It just so happens that I left off at a place very few
people want to be stranded in – The Fog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, if you are a psychogeographer, the liminal period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Late 1974 was confusing and contentious - the Glam Slam era was virtually over, and disco had yet to really catch on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naturally it was a time (as ever) when record companies wanted hits,
they wanted something catchy and oh well who cared what the lyrics were about
as long it had a decent chorus and some good hooks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sexual revolution?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who upstairs approved of that though? </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Leave it to the Canadians, as always, to inadvertently push
things forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bachman-Turner
Overdrive, the prairie kings of HRS, were working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fragile</i> and someone
from the company came along to see if there were any obvious singles from the
album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well what else do you have, guys?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had a song they only used to play to
warm up which no one saw as being anything great or even okay – it was just a
crappy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cia_v4vxIE" target="_blank">song</a> to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company man
knew it would be a hit though, so “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” was duly
recorded, deliberate stuttering put in by Randy as a tribute to his
brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so it was a hit, this song
about a naive young man who has fallen in love with a more experienced woman,
and hooee is he having <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fun</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stuttering works as a way of showing his
shock, his pleasure – and the simplicity of the cowbell-rockin’ song does
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That it’s a song about a sexually
assertive woman and a man most happy and even greedy (“I took what I could get”
he says, after “any love is good love” which actually gives the song a risqué element
beyond mere greed) is very quietly revolutionary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is not resentful or bitter or neurotic
about being the one who has things to learn – <em>quite</em> the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t “Summer The First Time” – the
implication, as much as BTO can be bothered, is that they are equals, save for
this one thing. Listen to the bass and you will see how sexy and knowing the
song is, without being tiresome. </span></div>
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</div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently” is a similar <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kPzSdOoxC4" target="_blank">song</a>, though it was
very much intended to be a single, one that Kim had to finance and release on
his own label as no one else was interested in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a gamble so desperate that on the
b-side there was no time for another song, just the instrumental part of the
a-side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That both were hits (the b-side
got airplay on US R&B stations) shows how gambles can indeed pay off
sometimes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kim – and I’ve had a lot of time to consider this – sounds a
lot more experienced than the prairie-boy narrator from BTO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wears linen and good cologne; he knows
about art and music and yet is not a boring hipster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">together</i>
dude and thus when he comes across a woman he loves and she wants...something
he’s a bit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unfamiliar</i> with, he can be
generous and gracious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knows about
liberated women, the sexual revolution, and he’s perfectly fine with it, as
long as it’s a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gentle</i> one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thoughtful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sends flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That kind of revolution!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which was happening now that the 70s was busy
putting the 60s ideology into actual practice. The lyric “Don’t you know that I
have never been loved like this before” is sung in a way that it could be just
that, or you could hear a little smile in it, implying....whatever you think it
means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Both of these songs went to #2 here in the UK, and #1 in the US; there is a sweetness and humility and generosity in these songs that are sexy, a counterpoint in the UK at least to the usual idea of this era being something scary and most certainly macho. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Now then, I should note that I have skipped some songs as I didn't really *feel* the need to write about them - "Wombling Merry Christmas" being one, "Far Far Away" by Slade being another and there's a Rollers song in there too - and of course "Killer Queen" by Queen I <a href="http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2013/06/queen-greatest-hits.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> about over at <em>Then</em> <em>Play</em> <em>Long</em>. This is so I can better focus on the wonders of 1975, which I will be doing as usual but with the addition of the odd album or two* when needed to give a greater context to what was an exciting time musically (unlike some people who were just <em>bored</em> by music at the time). Those of you who know what 1975 meant in UK terms will be waiting for June; in some ways we are living in the opposite of that time, when the UK said <strong>yes</strong>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Up next: a hunky folksinger takes you on a tour.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">*Not in a <em>TPL</em> sort of way, but more as a sidebar, as such.</span></span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-8104101600099861172017-04-06T07:46:00.002-07:002017-04-06T07:46:50.695-07:00Searching For Light: Jimmy Ruffin: "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted""I'm outspoken, I wasn't part of the clique." - Jimmy Ruffin<br />
<br />
<br />
You may well be wondering what a Motown song from 1966 is doing in the 1974 chart, but as it stands, British radio has had its struggles with Motown for some time. <br />
<br />
In 1966, "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" got to #10, at the point late in the year where the tide for new, interesting music was turning from the UK and back to the US; just months before the pirate stations were to close, and Radio One was to begin. In the late 60s a reissue series of Motown singles that were never big hits when they were first issued began via Dave Godin*, who worked for the distribution arm for Motown in the UK; and Tony Blackburn and Alan Freeman were only too happy to play these alongside the fresh Motown songs, in a belief that these songs deserved more airplay, sales and general respect.**<br />
<br />
This song was rereleased (possibly by Godin; I am not sure of this) and got to #2 on the Luxembourg chart, #4 on the UK chart. Which is only right for such a (and I don't use this word loosely) majestic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQywZYoGB1g" target="_blank">song</a>. <br />
<br />
And yet it has, as I keep thinking, something a bit rough about it too. Ruffin grew up poor, singing in the church alongside his brother David, and went into the army for a time, then worked in a factory, and after an injury took up work at Motown, singing for sessions, doing singles that were on the Motown subsidiary Miracle, while his brother joined The Temptations (a job he had turned down). He heard this song, written by William Witherspoon, Paul Riser and James Dean, and heard The Spinners were to record it - the song resonated with him, and he managed to convince them that he should record it instead. <br />
<br />
Though not on the single version, there is a spoken introduction:<br />
<br />
<dd>A world filled with love is a wonderful sight.</dd><dd>Being in love is one's heart's delight.</dd><dd>But that look of love isn't on my face.</dd><dd>That enchanted feeling has been replaced.</dd><dd> </dd>The song was produced by Smokey Robinson, and Ruffin's voice is dignified, direct, unironic. And the Andantes and Originals are there too, because this is one man's witness to a crowd, a congregation; though it is not a protest song explicitly, there is an inescapable sense that what he has suffered has been suffered by others, due to the many voices, voices who have growing needs but only experience is of an "unhappy ending." Ruffin didn't want to be part of a group, and his tenor voice is too distinctive to blend in happily. It is a voice of a man who is average, but outspoken; a man who went to the UK and Europe to work when things dried up in the US. <br />
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The misery in this song is absolute - he is "cold and alone" and while he sees love growing everywhere for others, it does not exist for him. There are The Andantes and The Originals testifying to this, and there they are encouraging him to keep going, to keep searching in the darkness for light; the song's title, which is something of a question, is that the brokenhearted either give up to the bleakness or they have the faith (<em>have</em> to have it) to find a way out, to find someone who <em>will</em> care. He is a seer; he has visions; and at first these are troubling, but he also walks towards something positive, even if he can't see it, he <em>knows</em> it's there. <br />
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Was this a hit in the UK of 1974 as people wanted to feel acknowledged in their hapless sense of "always moving but going nowhere"? Well, we are in the time of The Fog and the bewilderment many must have felt is echoed in this song. But the narrator is not going to "make do and mend" or "keep calm and carry on" or anything like that; he is restless, he is in pain, and passive suffering is of no use to him. Though he may be anguished, he is active; as active as the opposite Motown song of the time, "Reach Out I'll Be There."<br />
<br />
That this song would be covered by Dave Stewart and Colin Blunstone*** in 1981 as an anti-Thatcher protest and be a hit (I like to think Ruffin appreciated this; it was his favorite cover version) is one thing to note; that Ruffin did a version of it in Italian called "Se Decidi Cosi"**** is another. It was made a hit all over again for Paul Young in 1991, and memorably <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA0GcXV2njY" target="_blank">performed</a> in the 2002 Motown doc <em>Standing In The Shadows Of Motown</em> by Joan Osborne. <br />
<br />
But what of Motown on British radio now? (By this I mean 60s Motown, of course.) Tony Blackburn does a "soul and Motown" show on digital radio and it is mixed up with random 80s soul and he no doubt plays some on his other shows (he has so many now and Motown is always a part of them). But where else does it get played? Is it doomed simply to be comfort food radio for those who remember being young at the time? (Always with the idea, looming in the background, that everything has gotten <em>worse</em> since, including the music?) <br />
<br />
As the 60s disappear from the radio*****, Motown persists, but it is only as a sound, not as a <strong>meaning</strong> or as anything other than "the hits." Northern Soul still gets played, I suppose, but what of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/ulv/Dave-Godins-Deep-Soul-Treasures-Vol-1-Vaults/B0000013BX/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1491488747&sr=1-2&keywords=deep+soul" target="_blank">Deep Soul</a>, that of which Dave Godin was most proud? That is perhaps too much for UK radio, and as so much US music tends to be, left to specialist broadcasters, while regular radio clings for dear life to the chart, as if to keep utter chaos from breaking out. So much fine music being missed out, yet again; and what will become of it?<br />
<br />
As for Jimmy Ruffin, he sang on miner's strike benefit single "Soul Deep" by the Council Collective as he knew about the struggles of the working man; and he would have had another hit with Stock, Aitken & Waterman's "Roadblock" but his vocal was left off to make it more mysterious. But this is the song that has persisted; and whatever the cause, I am glad it got a second chance in the UK, much as Ruffin did.<br />
<br />
Next up: back to Canada.<br />
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<br />
<br />
*Dave Godin also coined the terms Northern Soul and Deep Soul, more on which anon.<br />
<br />
**"Dancing In The Street" originally got to #28 in the UK in 1964 (when "Little Red Rooster" by The Rolling Stones was #1 - Dave Godin didn't think much of <em>that</em>, I bet); but with the push of Godin et. al., it got to #4 in 1969, for example.<br />
<br />
***It was originally supposed to be Robert Wyatt, but he was busy working with Scritti Politti at the time. <br />
<br />
****"So If You Decide"<br />
<br />
*****Radio Two's Sounds of the 60s now comes on at 6am on Saturday and is determinedly upbeat cheery stuff, as presented by Tony Blackburn. The previous host, Brian Matthew, was dismissed only a few weeks ago and recently was taken to hospital, and mistakenly reported as dead by the BBC. As of this writing he is still alive. <br />
<br />
<br />
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-40710226714938672252017-03-22T05:00:00.000-07:002017-03-22T05:00:24.500-07:00A Road That Sometimes Bends: The Stylistics: "You Make Me Feel Brand New"
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, a short explanation as to why there has been a pause
here – apart from various holidays and birthdays, there was the rather
traumatic Saturday when I came home from work, to find Marcello agitated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By now I am used to the misery and agitation
upon the announcement of a death of a musician, and a song produced by Thom
Bell was playing in the background, so I naturally assumed the worst, only to
be told no, Mr. Bell was very much alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was only after a bit of prodding that he told me that a man who had
been inspired to blog (in part) due to Marcello’s own blogging had died the
previous day, by his own hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That man
was Mark Fisher, a man I had only met once, and then only briefly, at that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had attended the Deep Listening Club,
noting coolly that I was the only woman there, and was nearly the only woman another gathering where I half-whimsically suggested the next Deep Listening Club
be Charles Spearin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Happiness-Project-Charles-Spearin/dp/B001M4L5Z2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490180295&sr=1-1&keywords=Charles+Spearin" target="_blank">The HappinessProject</a></i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was no second Deep Listening Club though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can relate only a few impressions of what
he was like here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nervous, enthusiastic,
sensitive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got the idea he had his own
tastes and views that had very little to do with my own (I am not especially
interested in the eerie or weird, for instance).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His creating the website <a href="http://dissensus.com/" target="_blank">Dissensus</a> and then
leaving it behind are both noble gestures however, and unlike others in the
circles he was in he was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> “one of
us” in the sense that he went to a public school, Oxbridge and/or “just happened
to be” related to someone of money and importance.*</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you live in a
culture like this day in and day out, you have to be extremely careful,
distanced, self-aware and self-protective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I could not tell, from just meeting him once, how good Fisher was at
this, or whether he was capable of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This in part is why his loss is so tough. Marcello decided right then to end <em>Then Play Long</em>, for many different reasons, including the general sense that the "one of us" types have no interest in it whatsoever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Music Sounds Better
With Two,</i> however, has never been about wanting or even really needing too
much acceptance for me; it is something I do mostly (though not wholly) for my
own understanding of things, with the hopeful by-product of helping others to
learn things as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so, we return to the number two song behind “When Will I
See You Again”:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You Make Me Feel Brand
New” by The Stylistics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here we are in August 1974 and for many reasons, which (if
you’re an American, especially) the Long National Nightmares are over, or
nearly so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fog still exists in the
UK however, but look how the charts have shifted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Glam Slam is fading away (to be replaced
by Queen in the popularity stakes, though Slade and Mud and the chart-observant
Rubettes still around), and dance music – of the sort that is now
apparently immovable from the Radio Two schedule – is taking over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disco</i>
has yet to really become known, but it is well on its way<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beginning of the 70s is over; the Fog
still exists as I said, but there are welcoming beams of something <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">else</b> coming from Philadelphia....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To help explain Thom Bell and why he is a genius, you have
to understand that he was classically trained and indeed wanted to become a
concert pianist/conductor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went to
New York City with this ambition only to be rejected and told to go to Harlem
and the Apollo and find work there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was a disappointing turn of events (there were black conductors in the US, but
as ever one or two were seen as being “enough” by the Man) and so he went back to
Philadelphia and worked as a conductor for Chubby Checker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After tiring of the Twist, he got to work
with a group he refashioned as The Delfonics, writing songs for them as the
ones he tried to get for them from labels were so bad, he figured he could do
better himself; so he taught himself composition, straight from books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had some small successes at first, but
with “La-La (Means I Love You)” he had a huge hit**, and became a known figure,
winning a Grammy and (along with his friends and work associates Gamble and
Huff) began to define the Philadelphia sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After producing and writing for the The Delfonics he then in 1971
moved along to The Stylistics, who he accepted as the voice of Russell Thompkins
Jr. was (and is) so strikingly high and distinctive – pure and naive and sharp
all at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he constructed
the near-classical pieces to feature that voice ,though on “You Make Me Feel
Brand New” you also hear the voice of <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Airrion Love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the great
contrast between the two that in part makes the song so special.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a song of two voices– to have it sung
by only one voice seems <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">odd</i> (Mick
Hucknall tried and failed, spectacularly).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is also a song of vulnerability and gratitude, utterly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">calm</i> and even if Linda Creed does rhyme “friend”
with “friend” this just adds to the realism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That a sitar is in the mix should not be seen as anything other than
Bell’s own determination to make his songs sound <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">different</i> (and he knew about the sitar from way before the Beatles
made them famous; his West Indies background and experience with exchange
students at an early age gave him a musical knowledge others didn’t have).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">This moment of calm and vaguely exotic and strikingly modern bliss was a number two hit on both sides of the Atlantic; it feels utterly grounded in a way and yet soars (due to the two voices) and both Love and Thompkins take it slowly, not showily, somehow fitting in as voices in the general palette but also instruments. It is a hymn; solemn, stately and melodic enough to have a reggae cover version (I can only imagine there is one). </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Thom Bell won the very first Producer of the Year Grammy award in 1974 - and I am sure whoever has won it since has looked up to him in some way.*** His genius was to keep pushing ahead and teach himself things when others wouldn't, and to know what he wanted and with the lyrics of Linda Creed in this case, bring a delicate and genuine moment to the charts. The Stylistics suffered once Bell left them to Hugo & Luigi and worked with The Spinners instead; but along with Charles Stepney (a very different producer, but underrated I feel****) and Maurice White he made some of the very best music of the 70s. It is music that speaks to the spirit and to the heart. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Next: we go back to go forward, so to speak.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">And: thanks for waiting, everyone!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*It may be obvious, but it needs stating:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the “one of us” types who feel entitled to
everything have pretty much ruined the UK and everything good about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst ones are those who act as if they
are not “one of us” but actually very much are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">**He won a Grammy but was only able to see this in person as
somehow he wangled his way to get a seat in the room – he wasn’t invited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The president of the company, not him,
accepted the award.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He hasn’t been to a
Grammy ceremony since.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*** I can just imagine the temper tantrums in certain quarters when (cough) certain big-headed producers didn't get the award, and weren't even thought of to give it to first. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">****Even if Stepney had only produced this, he would be one of the greatest of all time (also co-wrote it, of course): Rotary Connection's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsY_rRFncGU" target="_blank">I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun</a>."</span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-46403981764427040112016-09-22T05:32:00.001-07:002016-09-22T05:32:50.786-07:003, 2, 1: Mud: "Rocket"And so we return to the increasingly awkward subject of the Glam Slam.* I say awkward as it is coming towards its natural end here in August 1974, when Mud's "Rocket" only gets to #6 in the UK charts (it is here as a Radio Luxembourg entry). Yes, there's more of the Glam Slam to come, and Mud do keep having hits - but if you look around the charts, things are starting to change. <br />
<br />
The awkwardness of Glam rock is not a problem in Mud's time - back to that in a moment - but now. I have already written at length about its most notorious <a href="http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-bull-in-maze-gary-glitter-rock-n.html" target="_blank">figure</a>, and that put together with other people's even more notorious behaviour has put a damper on the fun. I will let Stewart Lee, of all people, explain, from this <a href="http://ramalbumclub.com/post/140859250374/week-60-the-rise-and-fall-of-ziggy-stardust-by" target="_blank">blog</a> entry on<em><strong> </strong>Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From</em> <em>Mars</em>: <br />
<br />
<br />
"I don’t really like this whole album much. I have a quite visceral response to it. It makes me feel physically sick throughout and I’ve not enjoyed living with it. It’s not Bowie’s fault, but because of all that Jimmy Savile <em>Top of the Pops</em> footage that whole early 70s glam rock guitar sound now just makes me think of children being harmed. That’s what it reminds me of, and I can’t get past it, which is awful, but people get a similar thing with Wagner. Something becomes associated in your mind with something and you’re stuck with it, sadly. There’s not much you can do about it. It’s pavlovian." <br />
<br />
<br />
That is what the revelations have done; they have made the ears close, the eyes wince, the whole body revolt. Please note this is after Bowie's death, and that I don't think he's alone in feeling awful in listening to something that happened to be Glam, which was, to say the least, a time when some men thought they could get away with anything. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, it's August 1974 and this thing called dance music is starting to appear - it's fresh, it's sensuous, and it will soon be called disco and once it does, <strong>it</strong> becomes the new glamorous music. Soon whatever Glam Slam heroes that are left will be making disco music, or at least trying, including Mud.<br />
<br />
But to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4PwRjLsDuc" target="_blank">song</a>! It is pure Chinn/Chapman cheese, melting in the Elvis-isms of Les Gray's voice, rocking away while the story of Abigail Rocketblast (so she named herself; I wonder if the unseen teenager in <em>Abigail's</em> <em>Party</em> is named after her). <em>This</em> Abigail wants to be a movie star, and the narrator talks of her going out to Hollywood - "this here's the story" says Gray at the beginning. At sixteen she is ambitious, and she rejects her blue jean past for the world of fancy restaurants minks and fast-talking agents. "Second verse" says Gray, fourth-walling the whole way...<br />
<br />
Does Abigail become famous? No, alas, she doesn't, and the narrator, who remembers her from back when, says they were using her, and now she's just in a regular diner, hanging out, and guess who is there to remember her? Who is there to launch her now? He calls her Rocket and is going to "launch" her soon. Along the way are odd Russian-monks style background vocals, a straight-ahead guitar solo and a breakdown at the end of Elvis hip-swinging doo-waaaah, as if the word "launch" actually stands for something else. She's a rocket alright, going straight to the moon. It's cheese, like I said, but for Mud it's relatively sexy cheese. <br />
<br />
The Wedding Present, in their gallant attempt to destroy the charts in 1992, did their own version of this song as a b-side, and it's done in their rough Leeds style, with more "come on, come on" and less Elvis. It's a faithful version, and it's odd to hear Gedge sing a happy song (there is no breakdown at the end; it stops, after a few more impassioned "come on <strong>COME</strong> <strong>ON</strong>"s).<br />
<br />
So what to make of the Glam Slam era? With Bowie now held even higher, it is hard to see how it could be seen in hindsight as nothing but a launching pad for him, while it was fun-while-it-lasted for everyone else, who did what they could before disco and then punk superseded it as sources of glamor and even shock. Mud still exist, with no original members; Les Gray is gone, and guitarist Rob Davis went on to write songs done by Kylie Minogue, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Rachel Stevens. (They are all really good, too - <em>Come And Get It</em> by Rachel Stevens being better than you'd expect.)<br />
<br />
Something as infectious as Glam can never really go away, but besides being the subject of Simon Reynolds' next book, it has mutated into other things, with the come-on-cheer-up-Britannia aspect having curdled into something indigestible, unless you are able to separate those men from the Chinn/Chapman fromage that some can still remember with great fondness, despite everything. <br />
<br />
Next up: Philadelphia, here we come.<br />
<br />
<br />
*Please note I was using this term before the untimely death of Prince; a man who certainly was glamorous himself.Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-50055368968934334342015-09-17T04:21:00.000-07:002015-09-17T04:21:15.266-07:00A New Hope: Sparks: "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us"And now we have, for all intents and purposes, the last (and in a way, first) great song of the Glam Slam era; I say last as outside of a couple of hits by Mud and Sweet that era is nearly done at <i>MSBWT</i>, and first as while all of these bands are - or aren't - going to continue, Sparks are just getting started. To say there's no one really <i>like </i>them is an understatement; only this year has another band (Franz Ferdinand) been able to join them onstage as equals, and indeed record an entire album with them as FFS.<br />
<br />
And wouldn't it be a couple of Americans - Ron and Russell Mael - who would be able to storm the charts (and, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAzESJ62irI" target="_blank">infamously</a>, <i>Top Of The Pops</i>) and show up the scene as being <i>over</i>? Not that I think this is a confrontational song in that way. After all, it starts quietly, with that high nervous tinkle of piano and Russell Mael singing about, of all things, "zoo time" (yes, it's a romantic triangle that starts in a zoo - all those musky smells!) being "she and you time" and the song seems to come into focus as he mentions the "stampeding rhinos, elephants and tacky tigers" that then JUMP out into the song and are, as the guitars and drums come in, all but rampaging around, the gunshot like a trigger for their rebellion. And our narrator is brave enough (though nervous, heartbeat increasing) to stay around....<br />
<br />
...but this is no song of macho heroism, as that first nervous tinkle propels the song, pausing for breath at times (this always sounds like a song climbing and climbing, trying to avoid vertigo) and appropriately, the next verse sees our triangle in the air, she a stewardess and he is a bombardier and it's Hiroshima they are nearing - but still, the narrator won't leave. All this on a <i>domestic </i>flight? This is romantic anxiety that is blowing everything up, making it <i>bigger </i>than life, but it's <i>not </i>exaggeration if you're experiencing it. And then it descends to a cafe, where he meets her each day, and the rival sees "twenty cannibals" there eating him - they've got to eat too, after all! - and suddenly the idea of Glam seems to fade, right here in front of us. This is not good-time music per se, nor is it about romantic languor (HA) or some kind of dystopian world where the kids will be feral but all right (Bowie)*. <br />
<br />
This is sweaty palms, shallow breathing, sure, but also <i>determination</i>. The narrator won't give in no matter <i>how </i>dangerous things are, and scenario after scenario is conjured up and defied. The rival takes a shower ("you've got to look your best for her and be clean everywhere" - that's just not Glam lyricism, there) and in the rainy foreign town "the bullets" can't hit him - because he's too clean, too sleek? And then the last scene, where a census (?!) shows there will be more girls in town, but still not enough - and the derring-do nerves come back once more, leaping up and down - "this town AIN'T big enough not BIG ENOUgh for the Both OF US" - and ends on a high ascending "I ain't gonna LEEAVE" and stops abruptly, so the audience can get used to what they've just heard. <br />
<br />
The narrator has more than made his case, if only in his own mind. No wild animals, nuclear explosions, gunfights on deserted streets by cafes, no, nothing is going to stop our high-voiced narrator from getting the girl and defeating his rival. Guitars wail, pianos pound (one Ron Mael stares into the camera and doesn't blink and this just adds to the steely determination of the song) and drums beat time that is Anglophile but somehow not - more fleet of foot, less teathered to "the blues" - Sparks are just <i>different </i>and I've seen them compared to Queen (um, <i>NO</i>) and 10cc (a bit closer, but still, no). ("Amateur Hour" was their next hit, and is funny and sexy and yes, the girls did scream...) <br />
<br />
This is <i>instinctive </i>music, dramatic, playful - you get the idea that no genre of music is off limits to Sparks, no lyrical idea too weird. (This song seems to come out of a musical, for instance.) This song marks the real start, I feel, towards not punk so much as post-punk**; a kind of follow-your-own-path sense that prizes skill, sure, but also awkwardness, singularity, experimental-mindedness. Compare this to the Glam-by-numbers of "Sugar Baby Love" and you can see how this song's increasing heartbeats are somehow truer to life than the 50s throwback at the top; it's more alive, it's rock music without being beholden to "rock" - it is the leap forward<i>, </i>forward to Glasgow, to London, to Dundee, to anywhere that longs for something <i>new</i>. Just as The Beatles brought American music back to America, Sparks have brought British music back to the British; a big claim, but a valid one, I feel...<br />
<br />
Next up: There, and yet not. <br />
<br />
*In case you were wondering, I was supposed to write about <i>ChangesBowie </i>over at <i>Then Play Long</i>, but the prospect of doing so gave me a literal headache. <br />
<br />
** Siouxie and the Banshees covered this on their <i>Through The Looking Glass </i>album
in '87, which is when I first heard the song; Sparks have always been
more popular in the UK than in their native land - and while she tries
her best, she's too serious. This is a <i>tough </i>song to sing though, and she does get through it very well. Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-73262664199709146242015-06-30T04:40:00.002-07:002015-06-30T04:40:56.134-07:00Dedicated: Wizzard: "Rock 'n' Roll Winter (Looney's Tune)"If there is one thing that I sometimes think music writers tend to discount a bit, it's sentiment. Sentiment is all over music; strong feelings can be the cause of music (and its cure - having a passion can be exhausting too)...so to find out that a song is for a certain person can make the song more poignant, but I do wonder sometimes what the Other in this case <i>feels</i>. What is it like to have a song about you be a huge hit? Is it still <i>for </i>you, or it is suddenly for everyone else who needs it as well? I guess it depends upon the individual and the song, too*.<br />
<br />
This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsxR0DIxnwk" target="_blank">song</a> must have sounded like a big hug at the time, a hug given to Roy Wood's girlfriend of the time, the late Lynsey de Paul. In their dare-I-say-it-legendary performance on <em>TOTP </em>(the only time a vacuum cleaner has been played like a cello), Roy Wood looks utterly calm and also in <em>love</em>; with his mass of multicolored hair and multicolored face, he appears to be trying his best to hide, to put on a mask, but love cannot be hidden. The song is addressed to De Paul (who is crying), perhaps because she now has the notorious Don Arden as her manager; who knows. But this song is huge, complex, rock 'n' roll taken up to some new degree - as big as their previous <a href="http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/a-love-from-outer-space-wizzard-i-wish.html" target="_blank">hit</a>. <br />
<br />
There is something a <em>little intimidating </em>to have all this dedicated to you, I would guess, but the sheer <em>riches</em> on offer (Wood played almost all parts himself) in the wintertime...well it is like Christmas all over again, in part. The Glam Slam isn't just about flash and trash; it's also about cheer and joy and merriment as well, which in 1974 was otherwise in short supply. "If your most important things don't go your way" he says to her, then just ignore it, as his "teenage heart" is in love with her, and her music sustains him through the ice and snow; so this song is not just about their relationship but also about the ability of music - their music, all music - to sustain <em>them</em>. He could dedicate any song to her, he says; though exhausted, too tired to speak, the music does the talking for him. And so the song gallops through its chorus, then comes up to the end, stopping as a friendly horse would at the door. <br />
<br />
I don't know if de Paul loved this song, or even how long she was with Roy Wood; but I can say that this song (late in being released as, well, Wood wanted it to be <em>just so</em>) could easily be addressed to the general audience as well. Yes, we know 1974 started badly, even the spring can feel cold, dreadful times are upon us - but the eternal promise of rock 'n' roll is going to keep things afloat. At this time Wood wasn't really part of ELO anymore**, but Wizzard were still a parallel to them; I would rather listen to this than ELO's concurrent hit "Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle" at any time. <br />
<br />
This song, however, is utterly <em>normal</em> compared to the next one...<br />
<br />
Next up: They came from Los Angeles. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*It's called "Looney's Tune" as that was de Paul's nickname, given to her by Spike Milligan; it was #2 on the Radio Luxembourg chart. It was kept off the top by "Waterloo," which is clearly a Wizzard-inspired song. <br />
<br />
**That said I can't help but think he had a hand in <em><a href="http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/electric-light-orchestra-discovery.html" target="_blank">Out of the Blue</a></em>.<br />
<br />
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-15669616878594319692015-06-26T07:09:00.001-07:002015-06-30T02:45:36.514-07:00It Just Wouldn’t Go Away: Mud: “The Cat Crept In”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It can be a bit disturbing, listening to the BBC sometimes;
as the writer of this blog especially I can wonder just what is going on. <br />
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<br /></div>
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By this I mean that while I have written about nothing but
popular songs, some have fallen into The Void.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s to be expected; some of them are what I can say are “of their
time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But can a whole genre date?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div>
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The Glam Slam era can seem like a mirage by current radio
standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from a few “curated”*
artists such as Roxy Music, David Bowie and T. Rex, the actual Glam Slam era
gets an exceedingly short shrift on the radio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are reasons for this, of course.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I think there is a nostalgia problem; maybe that’s the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wrong</i> word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“False memory syndrome” seems more apt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A certain version of the70s is being pushed
on these stations (I mean 6 Music and Radio 2 in particular) – a version that
comforts and flatters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not fully
reflective of the decade – anything that is deemed too <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">much</i> in one way or another has been edited out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It ends up being a lot like the older (and
presumably) cooler older brother/sister throwing out all the singles and albums
that made the 70s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fun</b> and grimly
insisting that unless you listen to Philadelphia International and The
Eagles/ABBA/Blondie (R2 version) or Kraftwerk/The Clash/Led Zeppelin (6 Music) you are hopelessly naff and probably suspect, in some
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Radio 2 in particular will
seemingly play any old song, however awful (“Howzat” by Sherbet and “Little
Does She Know” by the Kursaal Flyers stand out here) rather than play anything
by Wizzard, Suzi Quatro, Slade, Sweet, the hapless Glitter Band or Mud. **</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, before I get to this hit I have to mention – as I am
pretty sure I have before – that there are two kinds of nostalgia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One is personal and specific and can be hard
to translate into words at times, relying as it does on touch, smell, sight and
taste; that one moment where I was so bowled over by a painting that I actually
got a stomach ache and had to lie down, for instance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This was just a modest version of something
that would happen to me two decades later.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I can show you the painting, I can tell you about the expensive fruit
salad my father reluctantly ordered for me later, but my intense reaction is my
own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If you live in Cleveland, it was
at your art museum; I don’t know if there’s a huge <a href="http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.81?collection_search_query=monet&op=search&form_build_id=form-gO2wa-RD3Ls1G4LZO858MkhsHXgNflVga3w445MOhXI&form_id=clevelandart_collection_search_form" target="_blank">Monet</a> still hanging there –
a water lilies one I think –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but look at
it, lie down, and then go have some fruit salad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are entitled to swear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hadn’t learned how to swear yet at the
time.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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The other is a generalized nostalgia which Douglas Coupland
calls “legislated” and it can be unnerving to witness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are asked to remember things you don’t
recall, celebrate things that don’t belong to you, to join in at all times with
what the mass is supposed to feel, supposed to think, and if you don’t then you
are odd, different, not one of “us.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This stretches (in the UK) from the perpetual<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>remembrances of WWII***<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(as I write a Glenn Miller <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6iHuH3D14" target="_blank">compilation </a>is in
the Top 40 album chart and when was the last time he was so popular? – oh yes,
1976) to the aforementioned edit of the 70s on the radio to any time you see a
“we” or “us” in a headline or in the speech of someone who isn’t an editor or
the Queen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The BBC in short is eager to
get its listeners to become a hivemind (Glastonbury!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Peel worship!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vinyl vinyl vinyl!) and the existence of this
and other blogs where music is looked at with care and consideration is seen as
being funny or weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They jar against
the received wisdom that only one version – <b>theirs</b> – of the past really
exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<br />
But to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TSS73qZd8&list=PLn_fE8m5trcxanQ5DAjWY3Sbwlztaf76V" target="_blank">song</a>!**** This is old school rock 'n' roll - all about a bad girl, don't you know -"She ain't superstitious but she's hanging on to life number nine/Well, you may not show it but she hides in the light/And she may not show it but this cat can bite" - yes, another sexy dame mapped out by Chinn and Chapman, and who doesn't like a little played-behind-my-head guitar? Mud did so well because they were fun, energetic, didn't take themselves too seriously - all the things that now mean that the radio barely play them - or any of the Glam Slam folks - unless it's Christmas (itself the most Glam of holidays). Certainly this is an oppositional number two behind "Seasons In The Sun" and a lot cheerier, to say the least, than another song in the Top Ten at the time - the near embodiment of The Fog, Hot Chocolate's "Emma."<br />
<br />
As shunned as Mud are these days, the vibe of the song wasn't lost completely - the seeds of a future, ground-breaking <i>MSBWT</i> song are here - Adam And The Ants' "Antmusic." And once that song's life on the radio was more or less over, along came Rob Davis of Mud to write and play on Rachel Stevens' <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rWwwVSCLf0" target="_blank">hit </a>"I Said Never Again" - there are references to this hit and "Antmusic" in there, and just like the Glam Slam folks, does La Stevens (or Spice Girls, Sugababes, Girls Aloud, All Saints) get much airplay these days? It is as if there is an embargo on all this <i>fun</i> and girly music (dare I say also working class music as well). Hmm. The cat keeps coming back, no matter what The Man tries to do.<br />
<br />
Next up: the Glam Slam continues! <br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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* I have to roll my eyes when I hear this; as someone who
grew up being led around by my parents in any number of galleries, museums,
etc. I have known what “to curate” means for a long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it has nothing to do with music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I roll my eyes a lot these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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**The Bay City Rollers are also a victim here – they weren’t
part of the Glam Slam itself but became popular at the same time, and their
Tartan Edinburgh sweetness was their big plus and minus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They aren’t played on these stations and one
broadcaster I can think of in particular, who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> plays 70s music, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">refuses</i>
to play them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d rather play The Sex
Pistols, who were only based in part on The Rollers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rockism, in other words, lives.</div>
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<br /></div>
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***The never-ending reruns of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dad’s Army</i> on television and radio point to something very
disturbing in the British psyche.<br />
<br />
****Not to be confused with the classic NFB animated <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETCusT5kNM" target="_blank">short </a>"The Cat Came Back."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-24181098288710598182014-08-26T04:17:00.000-07:002014-08-26T04:17:29.416-07:00Endless Quest: Charlie Rich: "The Most Beautiful Girl"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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This is one of those songs that takes me back to a time –
very roughly, when it was a big hit, a time I don’t recall that well, but this
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqbESuc2v8" target="_blank">song </a>crossed all kinds of boundaries on the radio, so the song’s easy for me to
remember – and a more recent time, the 90s, when I was socially active with a
bunch of good folks whose interests and obsessions and completist tendencies
had almost nothing to do with mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don’t talk about the Serial Diners much in my writing about music as I didn’t
have a lot of experience with them that had a musical focus; they were
collectively bound by a dining in a different restaurant every Friday night at
6 or so, and beyond that it was up to the group as to what would happen
next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A movie?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A games night?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A night where we’d just wander around, not up
to much?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all depended, but no two
people’s musical tastes were really the same, so going to a concert was never
on the agenda, not at even a small, affordable club on Queen St. West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why pay for fun when we could convene with a
tape recorder and microphone and bell and do improv comedy at someone’s
house?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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And so, within the group my own musical epiphanies and
enthusiasms were mostly bottled up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
had a Walkman and listened to CFNY by day and the easy-listening classical
station at night to help me get to sleep, but found myself really isolated
within the group, forever trying and failing to find common ground with anyone
besides one person…and there were a lot of people in the Diners back then, men
and women, older and younger than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
found myself at a loss once in being asked by one main member what made Jimi
Hendrix so special; again at a loss when another one (who was courting me at
the time, or about to) didn’t know who Al Green was; and long before I pretty
much stopped attending the Diners on an even semi-regular basis (c. 1999) I was
disheartened by an event that I will write about in the fullness of time*.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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This song I remember mentioning to yet another Diner and she
didn’t know it and I attempted to sing it – my voice certainly isn’t like Rich’s –
and she still didn’t know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a
little puzzled**, since the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>song hits
the bullseye for American music in so many ways – and it was a #1 hit in the US
and Canada, obviously a number two in the UK, too – I remember hearing it on a
jazz station at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rich’s ‘countrypolitan’
music finally saw him succeed in the charts after two decades in the business. . </div>
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Rich was a jazz and r&b guy who wasn’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>considered ‘bad’ enough for Sam Phillips at Sun
Records, so he worked there as a session musician and songwriter, instead of
being one of the Big Five – Elvis, Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Johnny Cash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had the odd hit here and there on one
label and another, including at Phillips (“Lonely Weekends”) and at another
with “Mohair Sam.” He considered himself a jazz pianist at heart and wasn’t
really getting anywhere*** until producer Billy Sherrill (who helped Rich to write
this, along with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Rory Michael Bourke and Norris Wilson</span>) turned him into a
country crooner, a man with clear experience in his voice, a man who’d been
there and back and didn’t need a damn souvenir. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His success came when, as “The Silver Fox” this
(and other songs, notably “Behind Closed Doors”) were hits not just in the
world of country music but in pop charts, too.<br />
<br />
The story is just about the oldest one in pop; he said something he shouldn't have, she leaves, he wakes up in the dawn to the knowledge he's wrong and is looking for her, his "sun" - the one thing he has worth having in the world. His casualness (starting a song with "Hey") isn't far from The Chi-Lites' "Have You Seen Her" though you get the idea that Rich isn't about to go asking anyone who hasn't had the same experience themselves. He's not about to talk to kids in the park about her; this is one guy speaking to another in a bar, a truckstop, the laundromat. He asks if she's crying (not because she misses him too, but because he caused her such pain - this narrator <i>knows </i>he's in the wrong) - and that if she has been spotted, this intermediary should go and tell her that he needs her. That's it, but the solemnity and maturity back it up, and I can imagine many a man hearing this song and maybe realizing, before it's too late, just how brutal and cold being alone is, that this song is one long exercise in hopeful hopelessness, that being without her is much, much worse than being with her.<br />
<br />
As a girl when I heard this I didn't really understand how someone could be the "most" beautiful; someone either was beautiful or she wasn't. How could he ever find her if there are so many beautiful women, I thought, this man is on a long, <i>long </i>quest. And knowing now that beauty is also in the eye of the beholder, his quest seems even more hapless, that short of being like The Bee Gees and having a literal picture of her to show to others, or phoning the cops, he's never going to find her. But the real story is the terrible gulf between the cold morning of his loss and the warmth she brings, as if there were no spring or fall in his life, just summer or winter. And for his sins, he'll spend the rest of time asking for her, trying to describe the indescribable...<br />
<br />
Next up: the return of Glam Slam, football and the Fog. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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*It wasn’t the night I couldn’t go to the 8th <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>anniversary of the Diners as the guy who didn’t
know about Al Green and I had an arrangement wherein I’d miss the dinner but
get to hang out afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did show
up, feeling…odd, and when I asked the Diners if anyone knew anything about
Stereolab, no one did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was 1997, and
I’d just discovered them via a tv commercial for the new VW Bug, so it wasn’t
like I was all <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> hip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it was alienating, nevertheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>much, much worse, however, had already happened years
before…and I will get to it on <i>Then Play Long</i>. </div>
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**There were plenty of times I'm sure she was puzzled by my musical knowledge (or lack of it) too.<br />
<br />
***His exhaustion at being an outsider for so long can be heard in the b-side of this single, "I Feel Like Goin' Home"; this is the demo <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZIZ6gmE_mo" target="_blank">version.</a> <br />
<br />
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Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-66698332906467283592014-08-18T05:05:00.000-07:002014-08-18T05:05:32.176-07:00The Nothing/Nothing Paradox: The Hollies: "The Air That I Breathe"It is a delicate thing, what this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhxoJ11ogU" target="_blank">song </a>talks about; it talks about a certain moment, a moment of fulfillment and privacy; something ordinarily not something to discuss or even sing about, but this did not stop Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood from baring their souls, so to speak. This song was originally done by Hammond on his album from '72, and then by Phil Everly on his the next year, and since the Hollies were Everly Brothers fans they came across it and decided to record it themselves. This is as much as I can figure; the Hollies needed a hit, and Allan Clarke was back in the band and able to handle the soaring chorus. <br />
<br />
But as usual, I have to wonder, what is this song about? I mean, it's obviously about post-coital bliss, but what that is borders on non-existence. "No light, no sound, nothing to eat, no books to read*" - if he could make a wish, it would to be in this state of non-wanting, to get away from the physical world altogether. His body is weak; his mind is at rest. He wants for nothing but to <i>breathe</i>, to be separate but together (he, rather bossily, tells his Other to sleep, but what if she feels the same way - pleasantly weak and wanting nothing more)? <br />
<br />
To bring something so common but, well, intimate to a song is tricky, as it requires a noble forthrightness and honesty, which can seem a bit cloying or cheesy, and I can't say that the Hollies avoid that altogether - it has always struck me as ironic that songs that are about being happy and quiet and contented can be so, well, <i>loud </i>- and this does also have the hapless early 70s stigma of the whole <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_is..." target="_blank">Love Is</a>... cartoon thing about it, as well. Open, honest, sensitive - I can't help but applaud Albert and Mike for this, for mentioning this moment and its glory - a glory that the production makes into a kind of king-for-a-day moment, an escape from the turmoil-of-1974. <br />
<br />
The 70s were a time when people shared thoughts and feelings with each other, maybe overshared - though there is the inverse of the tough man who says nothing but nevertheless has feelings, dammit, and this song speaks to him, there in his privacy, reaffirming that what he feels is worth a song, a one of dips and gliding arches, rising and falling like a bird in flight. It's not a sexy song, per se, but of peace, of stillness, of a soul at rest. Which is nice, <i>but</i>...and I know I can't be the <i>only </i>one of my Gen X crowd who felt a little uneasy hearing this as a kid...what is this song really about? Nothing, in essence - a falling away - a lack of self, which in Boomer logic means it must be given a big production. <br />
<br />
The legacy of this song is a little strange - it's kind of a mall-psychedelic-mellow-out-man song muscially; all about the ultimate moment of forgetfulness and detachment, save from the Other. And yet there it is, reworked a bit as "Creep" by Radiohead (how many heard this song and were influenced by it? Come on down, Richard "HEEEEEEyyyyyyyAAAAAAAAHHHHHEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYY" Ashcroft) which is the ultimate song about someone who most certainly <i>isn't </i>at peace, <i>doesn't </i>fit in, has a want and wants to be special, noticed, loved - but nope, no luck, he doesn't belong "here" - where he <i>does </i>belong, he's not sure, but it's not with the Others he encounters, hates and yet longs to be. (I wonder if these Others are the posh kids going to Oxford, cool scenesters, or what.) Radiohead were sued and gave credit where it was due for taking this song and making it their own, an angry, implacable jab at a world full of mindless bliss, oblivious to anything and anyone else. And "Creep" has more resonance now than this song - as everyone wants to feel special, more than they want some near-death lack of want. Or at least that's how it looks to me, these days. <br />
<br />
Next up: a man who's lost without his love.<br />
<br />
*I can't imagine another song like this that mentions books, <i>if </i>there are any other songs about this specific situation.Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-11155510475357788662014-08-04T04:44:00.002-07:002014-08-04T04:53:53.280-07:00I Met A Man Who Wasn't There: Lulu: "The Man Who Sold The World"Or, the power of Bowie in the age of crisis. Lulu attended one of Bowie's concerts, he invited her backstage and said he wanted to do a single with her; and so this happened (b-side is "Watch That Man"). Lulu had been through a lot by this time, including her Eurovision hit (a number <a href="http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/pink-fluff-lulu-boom-bang-bang.html" target="_blank">two</a>, as you'll recall) and an early and rather poignant marriage to Maurice Gibb, which was over by the time this was released. So she is at something of a loose end - she has by this time also gone and done an album at the new studio Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, <i>New Routes</i> (following dutifully in the footsteps of La Springfield) and another called <i>Melody Fair</i> - in Europe she was more or less a hit more in Germany than in the UK, where she was the pantomime star in <i>Peter Pan</i>. Neither of her albums charted, but I can imagine Bowie wishing she would do something a bit more <i>modern</i>, and since at this time Bowie <i>was </i>the thing (Lulu thought he was "ubercool" herself), a cover version was obvious.<br />
<br />
But this song? Nothing about it is obvious. Lulu herself didn't understand it but sang it anyway with a kind of toughness and raw quality that acts as a natural bridge between Bowie's version and the justifiably definitive one by Nirvana. In this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFAnA9oPRE" target="_blank">version</a>, she is staring, masculine, unamused; this creep on the stair is making her nervous, sure, but her "gazely stare" is expectant, defiant, even. The man (and she is dressed as a man) has sold the world, she laughs and shakes his hand, but then roams...someone died, didn't they? Did millions die? Death is part of life, and yet here death seems to become this man, somehow. Or is this a kind of death-in-life? "We never lost control" the song says, not ever saying who "we" are. Lulu's controlled voice brings the song to life in a way that makes it sound as if the man really <i>did </i>sell the world, and now she is looking in the mirror somehow and seeing herself in that figure on the stair; as if a hidden part of herself has confronted her, and her assertions of control are all she has against this uncanny double.<br />
<br />
We die, we live, and yet do we know who we are? Lulu's flat "Who knows? Not me" are a solid wall here, and Bowie's saxophone lends it a kind of creepiness that makes this slightly reggaefied cover unnerving, which is presumably what Bowie wanted. The pauses and echoes of the original are gone, all is centered on Lulu's voice - and does it alter the song, hearing a woman sing it? Is this a woman meeting her male self, her repressed side? Or is The Man here really The Man, content to let you think he's your friend, even though you've never really met him before? There are puzzles within puzzles here, but Lulu was smart enough to let the song stand for itself, and it was a #2 hit on the Radio Luxembourg chart, where the loucheness of the song altogether was indeed welcome and modern.<br />
<br />
Lulu is still an underrated singer and it would be most welcome if she could record a new album a la Petula Clark's <i>Lost In You*</i>; from what I could tell from the Commonwealth Games, she is still full of the genial toughness and eagerness to break new ground, even if all they wanted was her to sing "Shout" one more time. <br />
<br />
Next up: the (partial) invention of Radiohead. <br />
<br />
*It would be almost asking her too much to do <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyvImJ-_-hU" target="_blank">this</a>, wouldn't it? And yet, I think it could work....<br />
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-23146767170075052202014-05-03T05:25:00.001-07:002014-05-03T05:25:26.784-07:00The Big Takeover: Sweet: “Teenage Rampage”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Or, whatever happened to the Glam Slam?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s still here (the previous song was from
the RAK factory, after all) but it seems to be slowing down <i>somewhat</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This song isn’t so much about Glamour as it
is about Politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet Politics is
glamourous for some; almost all politicians, no matter their stripe, have
something of a high when they win and take power, much, I suppose, like the
honeymoon period of a marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sweet
don’t concern themselves too much with that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56URBUpOO-E" target="_blank">here </a>– it’s the kids – <b>teenagers</b>! –
who are going on a rampage and taking over with <i>their </i>rules, <i>their </i>choices,
their own constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Yes, the kids
are going to form committees and hash out their rule - democratically!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say “teenage rampage” now and people think of
a melee, a riot, looting, cats and dogs in the street, COMPLETE CHAOS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet that is not really happening
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The music is by-the-book glam; the
delirium documented, however, is real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Baby Boom peaked in the late 50s/early 60s, which is in part why so many songs
at this time had the word “teenage” in them (“Teenage Dream” by T. Rex and “Teenage
Lament ‘74” being the main ones, though as a rule the Glam Slam was all about
teenagers, more or less).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course
there is the fact that this song<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(stopped only by the biggest song of the year, Mud’s “Tiger Feet”)
appeared just as the effects of the three-day week were really kicking in –
more freedom for parents, more freedom for the kids?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or more chances to seize power, to do whatever
they want, to discard the present and think up a future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Their </i>time is coming, and in looking around
who can blame them for wanting to take over? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just about everybody who would become major figures in punk
and post-punk were teenagers at this time, and I can well imagine some of them
are already getting into music that is more adventurous than this; and they
were to make music that held to no constitution or united scene
whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Sweet had another
Chinn-Chapman hit on their hands here, but in the end it sounds more like what
would speak to, oh, Tony Blair more than John Lydon (though the Glam Slam got a
free pass from the punks – how could something so shiny and unpretentious be
bad)?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Next up:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Face to face
with…who?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-30724780848384808462014-04-24T06:18:00.000-07:002014-04-24T07:37:05.580-07:00The Beat Goes On: Cozy Powell: "Dance With The Devil"And so Music Sounds Better With Two returns, to an insistent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYB7lD6chwc" target="_blank">drumbeat</a>; and with that rocking start the mid-70s begins as well...<br />
<br />
Cozy Powell - a drummer from the Midlands who ordinarily played with various groups as a drummer - at this point he'd been with Jeff Beck and his own band Bedlam - was striking out on his own with this tribute (a<i> </i>#2 hit on Radio Luxembourg), on RAK records (meaning - that's probably Suzi Quatro in the back on vocals and bass). This song is overtly a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, however; and with "Third Stone From The Sun" being the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3KoAsNc1YA" target="_blank">melody</a> to the insistent beat*, the 70s once again remind the listening public of what has been and how the beating of drums can somehow summon them back again, drumming as a medium's way of bringing the dead back to life...<br />
<br />
...and what a life! Trying to even sum up Jimi Hendrix's importance to those who don't know him (astonishingly I tried to do this once and was frustrated even then with how indescribable his music is, how dangerous and ecstatic and in-your-face it is all at the same time - frustrated with myself, I should hasten, not Jimi). The Olympian heights he reached inspired so many people, some of whom were copyists, others more their own innovators in their own areas (Freddie Mercury's vocals were deeply influenced by Hendrix's bravado guitar solos). I am not, as a rule, one to sit around going "whoa dude" at guitarists in general, being more into the groove and feel of things, but Hendrix is someone I have a lot of time for; listening to a certain BBC station in the morning and hearing yet <i>more</i> news about Led Zeppelin is enough to make me shake my head at the bagel I am slicing, but somehow anything Hendrix grabs my attention. He is still ahead, still the way forward, still actual news. And it is no good wondering where the next Hendrix is (as Chrissie Hynde did back in the 90s, esp. wondering where the female Hendrix was) as one was quite enough and is still very much here, with no need for a "next."<br />
<br />
As for Powell, he continued to work at RAK for a while as well as forming his own band, and then joined Rainbow in 1975; he continued to drum in various bands until his death in 1998. He took his nickname (his actual name was Colin Flooks; you'd change it too) from the US jazz drummer Cozy Cole, who'd had huge hits with "Topsy" and "Topsy Part 2" - both songs that were mainly drum solos, a rare thing at any time. And so jazz makes a sideways wink into this song as well, as if to say - to Hendrix and to Powell - that it is the umbrella underneath which all other musics stand. Let the music play, and we can all beat the devil. <br />
<br />
Next up: The kids, the kids, and possibly some more roots of punk?<br />
<br />
*The beat on the original was far more laid back, as befits 1967, man.Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-26794604279966484692014-01-04T08:38:00.001-08:002014-01-04T08:38:34.357-08:00Onwards, Through The Fog<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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I thought I should pause for a moment to reflect on what has
been happening recently with regards to the intersection of music, power and
abuse of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It has become increasingly difficult for me to write
wholeheartedly about music in general because of Operation Yewtree – which, if
you don’t know about it, is looking at the extensive abuses of the late DJ
Jimmy Savile; the revelations of these abuses have caused others to come
forward and for other prominent musicians/broadcasters to be called in for
questioning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a terrible thing to
think of the ugliness and sleaze of the music industry extending to the BBC,
but it has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Gambaccini*, for instance,
has been off the air since October, awaiting legal proceedings; retired DJ Dave
Lee Travis has been under a cloud of allegations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Sports
broadcaster Stuart Hall has been convicted and put in jail and will likely be there
for life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Musicians are part of this as
well:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rolf Harris has been brought in for
questioning; Roy Harper has been too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ian Watkins of Lostprophets has pleaded guilty
to things more hideous than what most of these men have been alleged to have
done, but at the very, very least he has admitted guilt and is now in jail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fog that I have been writing about has
its heart here; and that is why writing has now become difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish I could just write about the music,
but in understanding the charts I have to understand the BBC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have reached the point where Gambaccini is
working at the BBC, Travis & Savile are fixtures there and only his
co-workers really know what Stuart Hall is up to, there in his room…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it is really like a David Peace novel, save I am not a
crime reporter but a mere music blogger, taking my magnifying glass to songs
and sensing something toxic about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think of how while it may be noble to write about these times, I am
reopening things that should stay shut, not just for the good of you readers
but for my own good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I think of the mid-70s I remember abuse,
plainly, and when I look at the corresponding #2 song I wince – if I have the
year right, and the time, and I think I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For me there is no going back to accuse my abuser or even naming him – I
don’t remember his face, or much of his voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just the notion that I was a thing to be “educated” and the non-cheering
thought that if another girl had been outside that cloudy summer afternoon it
would have been her, not me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as
you’d expect, the gulf of experience between now and then means I only am in
“now” or “then.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the 70s pull
ever-closer into focus for me the further many of the #2s of the mid-70s become
distant objects, ultimately irrelevant to my experiences as they were
lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mere action of looking back
at this time does not do what it once did; far more vivid things come to the
fore, demanding attention, and crucially almost none of this is helping me
adjust to life in the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Nor does it help that the BBC’s most popular station, Radio
2, is meanly fixated (in part) on this very time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have difficulty listening to it now as what
I want to hear – the new – is all but drowned out by the old, the creepy and
outright awful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is, as far as I can
tell, is to provide some odd layer of comfort to the listeners, a kind of cozy
nostalgia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly none of it is
played in an ironic or facetious manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is – this terrible music – played straight, accepted straight, with
no comment or fuss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sometimes think I
am the only one who notices this, just as I notice that so many of the “love
songs” played on R2 aren’t, in fact, love songs at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Now, I could (and have) changed the station, but how
absolutely wonderful would it be to actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">change</i> the station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
know that this would be difficult, as the ratings for these shows are so high,
proving that the public is willing to listen to crap music and why would the
embattled BBC want to lose even one listener?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think (as Marcello so often says) they are actually terrified of that,
but then what to make of the listeners themselves, the UK public at large?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this a station that actually exists (a
leap here, but not a huge one I don’t think) for the broadcasters <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rather</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">than</i> the music?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is what gets
played ultimately <i>meaningless</i>? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And are
the charts (therefore) also meaningless? In a place as small and dense as the
UK, what a DJ plays matters, the charts matter, but what if those associated
with charts and shows are…suspect?**</div>
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As you can see, dear reader, the whole music system closes
in on itself here, the actual fans of music themselves – the girls – unable to
see what is happening, due to fandom and naivete, until for far too many it was
too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may find some therapeutic
purpose in writing about the mid-70s; for me it is a step into the past that
makes things more complicated than even I had expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like to think as a trained journalist that
I can use some of my own personal experience to illuminate the wider scene, but
the scene here is ugly, relentless, smug, self-denying…and that scene seeps
into the charts, until they become one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Any steely determination I might have is nearly crushed by that
accumulative repulsion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
rebroadcasting of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TOTP</i> on BBC4 shows
just how elemental the BBC were to keeping fun and joy off the charts as best
they could, the shows being labelled with the tags <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“#nostalgiafail” and “#wrongness overload” and
variants on twitter for two years now. Even the punk scene ends up as just part
of the general scheme of things, alas; the BBC did not alter itself but stays
staunchly middle-of-the-road, right in the thick of things where the status quo
(no pun intended) remains what I would call “passive aggressive/neutral” –
which is also where most abusers would classify themselves, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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So how can I continue to write here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only way I can get through The Fog safely
is to avoid writing about large chunks of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not all of these songs are here because of The Fog – some I or Marcello
have written about already – but I think by listing the ’74 ones you can see
where I’m coming from.</div>
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“Angel Face” The Glitter Band (I have never heard this on UK
radio, and while they are innocent it’s a case of guilt by association, alas.)</div>
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“Remember You’re A Womble” The Wombles (I had Woodsy The Owl
and I don’t pollute – did The Wombles have the same effect at the time? Again,
a question better answered by someone else.)</div>
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“Homely Girl” The Chi-Lites (Ugh, and this got in while
Curtis Mayfield was sold in the wrong shops.)</div>
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“Don’t Stay Away Too Long” – Peters & Lee (who have been pretty much
already written about on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then Play Long</i>)</div>
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“Shang-a-lang” – Bay City Rollers (I strongly recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bye Bye Baby</i> by Caroline Sullivan in all
matters to do with the band and their Tartan Army; I was far too young to be
part of it.)</div>
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“Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll” Showaddywaddy (I will be avoiding this
band altogether.)</div>
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“Kissin’ In The Back Row Of The Movies” – The Drifters (Perhaps
the center of The Fog musically at least, and I must emphasize how their 70s
hits weren’t hits in the US.)</div>
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“Band On The Run” – Wings (already discussed on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then Play Long</i>)</div>
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“Born With A Smile On My Face” – Stephanie De Sykes (I don’t
think writing about this or any other soap-based hit will help me understand
the UK any better.)</div>
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“Far Far Away” – Slade (They remain more than a little alien
to me for some reason, so, no.)</div>
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“All Of Me Loves All Of You” – Bay City Rollers (see above)</div>
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“Killer Queen” – Queen (already discussed on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then Play Long</i>)</div>
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“Wombling Merry Christmas” – The Wombles (Isn’t it odd how
the ’73 Christmas hits have become standards while the ’74 ones have no lasting
impact whatsoever; or maybe not.)</div>
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Take away those songs and there are still a few to write
about from ’74, ones I can write about with enthusiasm and a strong belief that despite everything, good music does will (like truth) out. The Fog is something to contend with, but in the next few years I will try to find all the signs of life and light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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*I cannot comment on Gambaccini's situation directly as it has yet to be resolved one way or another; for someone who was such a fixture at the BBC (R2 had a whole week dedicated to his 40 years there) it may be that no matter what happens he may choose not to return to the station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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**<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Top</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pops</i> reruns now have to skip all
episodes hosted by Savile and Travis; a whole tranche of shared culture has
been denied the UK public, all because the BBC will not just edit their links
out – a case of the BBC going too far to correct themselves when in the past
they should have done so, but didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.com2