The Right Time: John Holt: "Help Me Make It Through The Night"

One of the contributing factors towards 1975 being the amazing year it was has to be the general openness of the charts.  The old stalwarts of pop and rock were still around, but new things, new permutations of things, abounded in the early 70s.  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.  Country and reggae were old friends, and here they sound just right together.

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 1000 Volts of Holt (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 Bass Culture, that the English kids who dug reggae c. 1971 were no longer interested in it, it being passé.)

“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.  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, The Further You Look.  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.  The song suited his voice and modest mien* and its devil-may-care-desperate lyrics somehow work in with the longing in his voice.  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?

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...

 

Next up:  Music, non-stop!

 

 

                                       

 

*Holt turned down a certain song which author Max Romeo eventually had to record himself.   Ahem.

The Big Takeover: Sweet: “Teenage Rampage”

Or, whatever happened to the Glam Slam?  It’s still here (the previous song was from the RAK factory, after all) but it seems to be slowing down somewhat.  This song isn’t so much about Glamour as it is about Politics.  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.  Sweet don’t concern themselves too much with that here – it’s the kids – teenagers! – who are going on a rampage and taking over with their rules, their choices, their own constitution.  (Yes, the kids are going to form committees and hash out their rule -  democratically!)  Say “teenage rampage” now and people think of a melee, a riot, looting, cats and dogs in the street, COMPLETE CHAOS.  And yet that is not really happening here.  The music is by-the-book glam; the delirium documented, however, is real.  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).  Of course there is the fact that this song  (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?  Or more chances to seize power, to do whatever they want, to discard the present and think up a future.  Their time is coming, and in looking around who can blame them for wanting to take over? 

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.  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)?

Next up:  Face to face with…who? 

Thoughts Of A King: T. Rex: "Solid Gold Easy Action"

With this, Marc Bolan enters his kingly phase; there is no other way of putting it.  I can see him on his throne, clapping and stomping and demanding that something that is "solid gold"; a demand that comes from him just not being satisfied with what else is going on. 

Now, when I say kingly I don't so much mean noble but the notion of being on top; and that is where T. Rex are at this point - top of the Glam Slam heap, all shiny silver and feather boas and glittery makeup.  By this time Born To Boogie was in the film theatres and "TRextacy" was afflicting hundreds of thousands of people, but with this frenetic stop-start song there is the plea from the new king that even this isn't enough; he isn't happy to share his "wondrous walk and my telephone dialing" with anyone, not even the "woman from the east" who "eased my pain."  He wants "easy action" (whatever that means) and he wants it now; the song is basically a kind of strolling tantrum, a refusal of what is available, of the people who are around him.  "I know you're shrewd and she's a dude" Bolan sings, but that isn't what he wants. (I'm not sure if this woman dressed like a dude is the Jane Slade were singing about, or what.  Did women think of themselves as dudes back then?)

If rock 'n' roll is about dissatisfaction, about demanding more - even if that more isn't (especially if it isn't) explainable or reachable or even possible, then this is right up there with the great two-minute anthems of wanting, yearning, protesting for more; but how odd to have Bolan sing this now, as opposed to when he started.  And in speeding his boogie up, he sounds both desperate and proto-punk; as if he knows what goes up must come down ("Life is the same and it always will be" is how the song starts, and he must know he is at his peak now*).  But rock 'n' roll is about more than being perpetually dissatisfied; it is about democracy at its heart, about how anyone can get onstage and do it, and that goes against any idea of any band or musician being kingly at all.  Thus there's no reason (in that sense) to hear this as anything other than Bolan being a whiny royal, again clapping his hands and demanding to be entertained, with wild cats on golden leashes or apes or peacocks or whatever pleasures take his fancy.  For those who identify with such a haute mien, well, this is their song.  To the stomping hordes who find their pleasures more easily - in the pub, the football grounds, or elsewhere - this is another T.Rex song that means about as much to them as Prince Charles' next polo match.  In this year of complexities and difficulties, the public starts to slowly grow disinterested in T.Rex (this is the last #2 on the 'official' chart they have) just as others who are goofier or cheerier - less demanding - come along to take their place.  1973 is a whirlwind year, a year when just stomping, wearing boas and singing about how unsatisfied you are is not going to last.  Glam is rock 'n' roll in a British sense; Bolan brought that aristocratic edge to it, but there is more to the UK than aristocracy, as we shall see. 

Next up:  he may look like that but really, he's a Mod.            

*He also mentions "picking foxes from a tree" which may be Bolan slang for something (or nothing) but in my brief experiences with foxes I have yet to see them in any trees whatsoever.  If folks were turning against T.Rex, or tiring of them, it was due to lines like this one.

Back to the Future: Donovan: "Sunshine Superman"

The term "psychedelic" comes from two Greek words - "psyche" (the soul) and "deloun" (to manifest). With this song the psychedelic era comes to this blog, though in truth psychedelic music had existed for at least a year if not more (Pet Sounds is psychedelic in the sense that it is a soul-manifesting album, for instance). It was recorded a year earlier but due to record company problems was a hit in the UK long after it got to #1 in the US. (Trust a Scotsman to be ahead of the curve musically.)

The term psychedelic was coined in 1957* - ten years earlier - to describe what LSD actually (they hoped) would do. It was never meant to be used outside of psychotherapy, originally, and many doctors and scientists did experiments to see what effect it would have on patients and 'artistic'** types. By the mid-60s they had determined that it was a drug with a rather unpredictable effect on people, and was much tougher to obtain, which didn't stop those in the know from getting it and giving it to those who felt they needed to go on their own trip. Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary and other respected folks encouraged those who were disenchanted to take it and enlighten themselves - to see the world in a new way and thence evolve.

Suffice it to say this Utopian idea - tuning in, turning on and dropping out - appealed to many who felt that just about everything going on in the 60s was wrong - the war, racism, sexism, the boring straight world with its hierarchies and tragic lack of soul. Others took it to prove they were brave enough to do so - Ken Kesey's acid tests had turned many on the West Coast on in '66-'65 - though taking it was never supposed to be about posing or boasting. It is also true that musicians who took LSD had to have a strong constitution to survive doing so, and that many tried to get their experiences into their songs, via words and/or music. It naturally appealed to those who were bored, restless, experimental - John Lennon and George Harrison were the LSD heads in The Beatles, for instance, as opposed to McCartney (who by this time still hadn't tried it). In the UK it was an American import and was one of those scandalous drugs that led to drug busts, even though it was not a crime to possess it (other ones, such as pot or cocaine, yes).

If you are wondering why I am going on about a drug as opposed to a song, that is because this year is unlike any others. This is the crossroads; this is the tightrope moment when musicians - particularly UK ones - begin to break down barriers and experiment and really listen to each other. LSD has a way of breaking down barriers as well of course, of making what is there simply more intense or perceptible in a way close to a mystical experience. It's a Utopian time all right, but with drugs there is always the risk that something will go wrong, that the classic "good idea at the time" will evaporate and what seems to be glaringly obvious to the tripper will be fuzzy or incoherent to those straighter folk who are trying to understand what the heck is going on.

1967 is unlike any other years in that so many musicians did their best to express the inexpressible and give the world a chance to hear what they heard, see what they saw, with uniformly stunning results. Apart from the strobe lights, fluorescent posters and the like, the music is what really lasts from this period; that a huge generation experienced it and gave it its popularity in the first place means I have always known it, almost have over-heard it, if that's possible.

Donovan's proud boasting that he can outdo Superman and Green Lantern in his exploits in order to win his girl are one thing, but a video with no lip-syncing is another, not to mention those psychedelic hallmark: distorted pictures, kites and random wackiness (avec kitten). This is psychedelic courting, full of pearls and rainbows and a sly wink in the song that doesn't take away from its seriousness. I grew up in a house full of Donovan's records and so this is as familiar to me as The Beach Boys. That it could be heard as an invitation from the hip to the straights to succumb to the ennobling and beautiful world post-trip is also there, the appeal as warm and enriching as, well, sunshine itself. But as we all know, too much sunshine can be dangerous, and LSD was never meant to be taken for that long.

This is the sunny introduction to a year that will transform a great deal of what can be thought of as 'rock' (in just about every way possible). It brings Jimmy Page (electric guitar) into this saga as well, then just a session musician who was still (at the time of recording) to join The Yardbirds. A whole world is opening up, erratically but inevitably, as the counterculture/flower power movement moves in from the fringes and starts to get noticed; hippies spring up wildflower-like and the enchanting strangeness and startling humor - not to mention rebelliousness - give The Man plc a big headache. The laid-back mood of the year is set, with barely one or two club hits managing to make it to #2, and none make it to #1 (save "I'm a Believer"). The torrid excitements of '66 are fading, to be replaced by musicians who are starting to slow down so they can hear each other better, who are becoming - for now - a real community. Their souls, if you like, are staring to manifest.



*LSD itself was invented in 1943, though its psychedelic properties weren't discovered for a few years.

**My father was the subject of an experiment, along with another painter, in Los Angeles in 1959. Everything he saw was brighter than usual, so the painting he did was darker, just to give his eyes a break. He later saw Hollywood Boulevard and thought it was on fire. He didn't show any interest in LSD afterwards, though we had old Psychedelic Reviews around the house, so he must have been curious...

Now Is The Time: Manfred Mann: "If You Gotta Go Go Now"

There has been a man stalking the charts all this year; sometimes he is there himself, sometimes it's others covering his songs or being inspired to sing or write songs like him. If there is a simple divide - state vs. pirate radio - then there is another one - those who know and dig Bob Dylan, and those who don't. He isn't now (and I'm guessing wasn't then) to everyone's liking, but those who embraced his casual twangy sound and sharp lyrics could not help wanting to be him; even Lennon succumbed for a while, inspired by the sheer exuberant noise of his songs, not to mention the fact that he was usually saying something - something complex, never simple.

The Manfreds were the first UK band to cover Dylan and get him near to the top (they would get a number one with "The Mighty Quinn" a few years from now) and they have just the right blend of roughness and odd tenderness to make this work. He wants her, but not if it's going to put her off her stride; she's got to make up her mind, not him. He is happy no matter what. And that is the undercurrent here - happiness. He's poor, it's late, he's tired - but there is no Stonesy condescension or smugness, nor is he going to miss her and whine about it next day to his friends. There is - can I say this? - an American plain-speaking here that is quite refreshing and the candid way Dylan had in all songs of saying what needed to be said must have hit all UK bands and songwriters quite hard (not to mention his dress sense and general gnomic nonchalance).

I don't know if the Manfreds were the first UK band to record a Dylan song, but they were the right group to do so. Dylan's work is certainly a challenge to The Beatles (whom he has already met); they start to go more acoustic and self-reflective just as he takes up the electric mantle. This is a crossroads in pop to be sure, one that not every singer or band could step into, but once again the line has been drawn between us and them, in attitude as well as style. That attitude would soon explode, but for now all remains quiet...

Last Breaths: Cliff Richard and the Shadows: "Do You Want To Dance/I'm Looking Out The Window"

This presents two rather different versions of the Cliff Richard Experience; an experience which is rooted in the 50s (those lock-steps that he does with the Shadows) and yet the same song, as done by the Beach Boys just a few later (I cannot help but mention my fellow Californians, particularly since Dennis is singing lead here) is a song that verily defies you not to dance; the Cliff Richard/Shadows version sounds as if maybe you'd want to do a brisk minuet or perhaps the stroll, at best. I know it is unfair to jump into the future here, but the future in 1962 was very close to appearing; in a way this seems like the last breath, the last relic before something is about to happen - something that Cliff and the Shadows will bravely live through and endure in their own ways. But in the meantime, here they are doing their dance and being the polite and lovable rockers that they are.

And now we have Cliff's future, and thus a way out - a gentle mourning hum, softly hoping and waiting, the Shadows like a beneficent sun on Cliff's focused pain. He sits in his suit (a suit he claims to wear every day, just in case - not visible here, just audible here, alas) and sings the words as if they were almost too awful to sing. How can he be second best? How can he have fallen for someone who treats him like this? The main problem here is that Richard is just, lest we forget, 21 and cannot really be suffering as much as he claims here; but again the poignancy of this is that he can see into his future, wherein he is always there, ready and well-dressed and waiting, but no one calls; at the time this may have been just a song, but songs have a way of becoming uneasy reality after a while. The girls presumably loved this one and rightly found Richard too beautiful to suffer; Cliff and the Shadows' dancing had everyone happily tapping their toes. However it is late June 1962, and while heavy smog descends once again on London, Algerians are about to gain their independence and the Port Huron statement is written, printed and distributed across the U.S.; the polite world that Cliff Richard and the Shadows represent is coming to a close, with rougher and wilder voices just edging in from the wilderness.

Who Wants To Be King?: Elvis Presley: "King Creole"

With this entry a fascinating and (on one side at least) long-running competition is close at hand; a competition that is in some ways nearly pathetic, in other ways quite moving and cheering.

By 1958 it was more than clear that rock 'n' roll had one overwhelming figure - Elvis Presley. To be sure there were others who were as important and vital (and I will be getting to them soon enough) - but none were as utterly there as Elvis. When he verily spits out the lyrics of "King Creole" (backed by a totally awake & into it Jordanaires), he is almost saying - this is it, this is what rock 'n' roll is, punks, try me if you dare. "He's a guitar man/With a great big soul/He lays down a beat/Like a ton of coal" he intones, as a tougher version of "All Shook Up" leaps and bounds like a prizefighter. The whole song, in fact, is like a knock-out punch; "When the king starts to do it/It's as good as done/He holds his guitar/Like a tommy gun" pretty much shows that the King means business and isn't interested in prisoners. Hip-shaking, pork-and-beans and jelly roll singing King Creole is an unstoppable fearsome force (Elvis here sounds like hip hop virtually) that inspires others, indeed has been inspiring others for years, including an India-born young man called Harry Rodger Webb. This is where the competition begins, along with a long lesson (for them, not for us) on the definitions of success and happiness. The overture is done, now time for the show.

Does He Or Doesn't He?: Frank Sinatra: "(Love Is) The Tender Trap"

Here is the second song that defines what love is – and instead of the windswept romanticism of The Four Aces, we have the more worldly-wise Sinatra to sing the definition. It is a cheery, squawky and practically winking song about you-know-what – one minute you see her eyes and hear her sighs, the next you are cuddling underneath a tree and then it’s the shoes-and-rice routine before you even know it. What is love? Love is a trap – a tender one, to be sure, but a trap nevertheless. Of course, only someone who is wary of falling in love would call it a trap in the first place, and the movie where this song originates (The Tender Trap) is about a guy who loves ‘em and leaves ‘em falling for a girl who will not stand for any of his nonsense; a girl who doesn’t automatically fall at his feet, wanting to do his cleaning or cooking just to be near him. Maybe he is willing to be seduced by ‘growing up’ or is tired of playing the field (he being Sinatra of course, and the girl being Debbie Reynolds)…but in the movie, this is a song he sings to Reynolds. Ponder that for a moment. A man sings a song about how love leads to marriage and how love is a trap – boom there it is, so to speak – either as a way of defending himself against what is happening, or protesting what he thinks may happen (it would help, I know, if I saw the movie). (It's kind of like a man singing "Absolute" in '85 - or any other New Pop standard addressing the nature of love.)

At no point in the song does Sinatra sound anything more than ready for love but also knowing; without having to say so, he has seen what love can do (his best friend in the movie, David Wayne, is married, has kids and lives in Indianapolis and is therefore ‘normal’ – perhaps his friend convinces him that being settled down is worth sacrificing his freedom). Celeste Holm is the fourth major character in the movie, an ex of Sinatra’s who is thirty-three and feels she must marry now or never; Sinatra proposes to her, but whether she accepts or not remains a mystery (if anyone knows, the comments box is open). The not-so-subtle message: men can marry when they want, women have to get married when they can. (I will note that the young woman at Cambridge who is there studying on a Fulbright is now twenty-three, is determined to find a husband while in England and considers herself on the verge of being a old maid if she doesn’t.) It is all well and good to know about the trap that is love, but there is volunteering to step into it, disappearing in a dot on the map, and longing to be trapped with no one available. (Hello, foreshadowing…)