Author Archive

Richard Hell & The Voidoids “Blank Generation”

| Punk

Blank Generation

After the uncertainty as to into which genre his previous band’s magnum opus ought to be placed, Richard Hell’s first album as bandleader turns out to be refreshingly and unambiguously punk, from whichever side of the Atlantic you define it.

Like Marquee Moon, the Voidoids’ debut offers a twin-guitar attack, but there any resemblance ends; devoid of any art-rock pretensions, the band and the album sit proudly and squarely between the New York and London incarnations of punk, yet with some surprisingly original touches. Hell’s spiky hair and ripped clothing, eagerly adopted by the Sex Pistols and their acolytes, contrast with the balding, bearded, bespectacled Bob Quine, hardly a punk icon. The guitars too are spiky, but Quine’s nervy, occasionally shrieking leads are closer to Richard Thompson’s edgy electric style than to either Tom Verlaine’s crystalline confections or Steve Jones’s simplistic Keef knockoffs. Hell is a better vocalist than either Verlaine or John Lydon, with clearer diction and a wider range of both pitches and effects; the heterodyne yowl he employs on Love Comes In Spurts and Liars Beware would be copied, irritatingly to excess, by Adam Ant. And Hell’s lyric writing is suitably rebellious in content, but steeped in the Romantic poetry which was his other muse.

The songs too provide unexpected variety. Love Comes In Spurts features a distinctive orgasmic guitar figure, and a chugging beat and repetitious refrain that suggest the thrusts of sexual intercourse. The slower Betrayal Takes Two has an almost Spectorish progression. Down At The Rock And Roll Club sounds like a demented outtake from the Who’s Tommy, right down to the brief appropriation of the riff from I’m Free. The title track employs a walking chord and bass pattern not dissimilar to Brian Setzer’s Stray Cat Strut, and has a fascinatingly ambiguous lyric: optimistic or nihilistic? Walking On The Water is a radically punked-up cover of a John Fogerty song, but the Voids playfully follow it with The Plan, an original performed to perfection in Creedence style complete with mellow country-rock leads from Quine. The eight-minute Another World is as close as they get to Televison, both lyrically and musically, but lacks the subtlety and dynamics of Marquee Moon, and the long, howling fadeout definitely outstays its welcome. However the only real dog is the CD reissue bonus track, Hell’s inexplicable and inept cover of Sinatra’s All The Way, which is nowhere near as repugnant as Sid Vicious’s later My Way but falls just as flat.

Intriguingly, Hell allegedly claimed that the blank in Blank Generation was not an expression of hopelessness for youth culture, as per the no future in the Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK, but an invitation to youth culture to insert its own definition. In a similar vein, on the original cover art, which differs from that used on the reissue CD, Hell has written across his bare chest You make me ____ . What? Again, that’s for you to decide.

“Love Comes in Spurts”

:) Vinyl | 1977 | Stiff | search ebay ]
;) MP3 Album | download @ amzn ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

The Moody Blues “In Search Of The Lost Chord”

| Classic Rock,Pop,Prog,Psych

In Search of the Lost Chord

It took a while for the Moody Blues to catch on in the US, though their retrospective catalogue scored quite well there after 1971. At home in the UK, however, the Moodies were huge during what I think was their best period, 1968-1970, when their highly individual and sophisticated mix of psych and prog was always spinning on the platters of more cerebral music lovers.
After the band’s 1967 reshuffle their yearning to combine pop and classical musics surfaced strongly. The first effort, Days Of Future Passed, interleaved some good early Moodies songs with second-rate orchestral interludes resembling B-movie soundtracks, and was therefore a patchy affair. Then Mike Pinder discovered the Mellotron, and everything clicked into place.
Pinder is probably the most accomplished Mellotron practitioner of the era, and during the period 1968-70, when miking of acoustic pianos was still hit-and-miss, it was the only onstage keyboard he employed. Its sound in his hands is absolutely fundamental to the Moodies’ output of the times. This is not to downplay the musicianship of the other members; especially notable are John Lodge’s bass playing, his picked Fender Jazz lines and arpeggios functioning as a further lead instrument, and Ray Thomas’s flute solos and obligatos, this instrument being rare in rock at the time.
The songs on In Search Of The Lost Chord feature lyrics of the sort that would ultimately make the Moodies a bit of a laughing stock for a while: plenty of hippie mysticism and Oriental metaphysical musing typical of the era. But they are delivered by four fine solo voices, often combining to produce immaculate harmonies. The melodies and accompaniments are top quality and there’s plenty of variation in keys and time signatures. Above all this there’s a spirit of experimentation typical of the times, with band members tackling unfamiliar instruments “ Pinder on harpsichord, Justin Hayward on sitar, Lodge on cello, Thomas on oboe, Grahame Edge on a kit of cardboard boxes – and a production which belies the limitations of the recording equipment then available to the band, with segues, fade-ins and fade-outs galore.
Legend Of A Mind is part of a short suite, bookended by House Of Four Doors Parts One and Two, but stands alone quite capably. Like many other tracks on the album, this tongue-in-cheek paean to LSD guru Timothy Leary and its bracketing tracks feature some breathless sound effects. These achieve their zenith in The Best Way To Travel, whose stereo effects were quite startling to a generation unused to the new mode of sound reproduction. Of the other tracks, Ride My See Saw is a galloping rocker often reserved for a show closer on stage, while Om incorporates an Oriental chant with huge drum sounds and vocals that sound like a revved-up football crowd.
Very much of its time, and subject to ridicule a decade later, today In Search Of The Lost Chord represents what was best in the days when psychedelia was mutating into progressive music. The follow-up, On The Threshold Of A Dream, offered the same high quality and experimental edge, with subsequent works becoming rather safer and more predictable, if even more grandiose.
PS: this is one that doesn’t work in mono!

It took a while for the Moody Blues to catch on in the US, though their retrospective catalogue scored quite well there after 1971. At home in the UK, however, the Moodies were huge during what I think was their best period, 1968-1970, when their highly individual and sophisticated mix of psych and prog was always spinning on the platters of more cerebral music lovers.

After the band’s 1967 reshuffle, their yearning to combine pop and classical musics surfaced strongly. The first effort, Days Of Future Passed, interleaved some good early Moodies songs with second-rate orchestral interludes resembling B-movie soundtracks, and was therefore a patchy affair. Then Mike Pinder discovered the Mellotron, and everything clicked into place.

Pinder is probably the most accomplished Mellotron practitioner of the era, and during the period 1968-70, when miking of acoustic pianos was still hit-and-miss, it was the only onstage keyboard he employed. Its sound in his hands is absolutely fundamental to the Moodies’ output of the times. This is not to downplay the musicianship of the other members; especially notable are John Lodge’s bass playing, his picked Fender Jazz lines and arpeggios functioning as a further lead instrument, and Ray Thomas’s flute solos and obligatos, this instrument being rare in rock at the time.

The songs on In Search Of The Lost Chord feature lyrics of the sort that would ultimately make the Moodies a bit of a laughing stock for a while: plenty of hippie mysticism and Oriental metaphysical musing typical of the era. But they are delivered by four fine solo voices, often combining to produce immaculate harmonies. The melodies and accompaniments are top quality and there’s plenty of variation in keys and time signatures. Above all this there’s a spirit of experimentation typical of the times, with band members tackling unfamiliar instruments “ Pinder on harpsichord, Justin Hayward on sitar, Lodge on cello, Thomas on oboe, Grahame Edge on a kit of cardboard boxes – and a production which belies the limitations of the recording equipment then available to the band, with segues, fade-ins and fade-outs galore.

Legend Of A Mind is part of a short suite, bookended by House Of Four Doors” Parts One and Two, but stands alone quite capably. Like many other tracks on the album, this tongue-in-cheek paean to LSD guru Timothy Leary and its bracketing tracks feature some breathless sound effects. These achieve their zenith in The Best Way To Travel, whose stereo effects were quite startling to a generation unused to the new mode of sound reproduction. Of the other tracks, Ride My See Saw is a galloping rocker often reserved for a show closer on stage, while Om incorporates an Oriental chant with huge drum sounds and vocals that sound like a revved-up football crowd.

Very much of its time, and subject to ridicule a decade later, today In Search Of The Lost Chord represents what was best in the days when psychedelia was mutating into progressive music. The follow-up, On The Threshold Of A Dream, offered the same high quality and experimental edge, with subsequent works becoming rather safer and more predictable, if even more grandiose.

PS: this is one that doesn’t work in mono!

“The Best Way to Travel”

:D CD Reissue | 2008 | Polydor | at amazon ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1968 | Deram | at ebay ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

Television “Marquee Moon”

| Art,Pop,Punk

Marquee Moon

From the start it was difficult to understand how Television came to be identified with the punk movement. OK, so Marquee Moon appeared in 1977, but so did Dire Straits’s debut, and nobody ever put them in the punk bracket (though Elvis Costello’s also did, and he was lumped in with the punks initially. Ho, hum.). Richard Hell was their first bassist, but he was asked to leave pretty quickly when he proved antipathetic to their carefully constructed tunes and well-rehearsed playing. And while they played CBGB’s, that was in 1974, before punk was identified as a new and separate musical current. And what red-blooded punk singer would take as his stage name that of a nineteenth-century French Symbolist poet?

Television has been described by other reviewers as a minimalist rock band, eliciting comparisons with everyone from the Velvet Underground to Philip Glass. Televison’s clean, sinuous twin-guitar interplay and complex musical arrangements have no real roots in the Underground’s fuzzy two-chord oeuvre. Oddly, the nearest point of reference may be Neil Young with Crazy Horse; just listen to the title track from this album, then play Young’s Down By The River. Agree?

The sound throughout the album is pretty homogeneous, with chiming, crystalline Fender guitars and Tom Verlaine’s high, nasal New York voice constantly to the fore, but the songs vary greatly in tempo, key, and arrangement. There are guitar solos, but these are cleanly choreographed, lean and spare, without a note wasted. The lyrics are often opaque, frequently Dylanesque. The heavily solarized portrait of the band on the front cover, by art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, breathes intruigue. This is genuine art-rock we’re talking about here.

Unfortunately there’s not really room on this webpage for the magnificent ten-minute title track, but it holds the listener’s attention right from the deliberately ambiguous timing of the intro to the unexpected recapitulation in the coda. Of the two MP3s below, Venus floats along on a glorious arpeggio “ and has a wonderful surrealist lyrical refrain about falling right into the arms of Venus de Milo! – whilst Friction comes closest to that Crazy Horse groove, with heavily-vibratoed modal lead guitar, staccato block chords and a funky bassline.

While researching this album I was surprised to find that on original release it did almost zip in the band’s home country, though it was very popular in Europe and especially here in the UK. Its high reputation in Britain has persisted; in 2003 the influential New Musical Express declared Marquee Moon to be the fourth best album of all time. (Certainly it’s in this reviewer’s top twenty.) Perhaps this Rising Storm post will introduce it to a newly appreciative audience in the States.

“Friction”

:) Original Vinyl | 1977 | Elektra | ebay ]
:D CD Reissue | 2003 | Elektra | amazon ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

Pink Floyd “Soundtrack from the film More”

| Psych

More

Pink Floyd’s milestone albums are today so embedded in the public consciousness that it’s become more necessary than ever to explore their lesser-known offerings. This can often lead to discovering some unexpected treats. Their soundtrack to the otherwise forgettable 1969 French film More is one such work. Perhaps Floyd’s last album to be imbued with the spirit of Syd Barrett, it comprises a collection of short songs and instrumental pieces, the acid-pop overtones, gentle chillout textures and generally taut construction of which offer a considerable contrast to the lengthy, plodding, half-improvised instrumentals which had become their standard fare, following the loss of Barrett’s lysergically-fuelled, wonderfully erratic songwriting. Roger Waters is the main composer and lyricist here, thankfully before his gloomy, introspective leanings really took over.

Although the album was commissioned as a film soundtrack and the pieces were written to order to fit scenes in the movie, the whole work can be enjoyed as an album of music with no reference at all to its raison d’être (I’ve never seen the film, and frankly have no wish to, given the nature of its plot). Six of the thirteen tracks are proper, complete songs rather than just instrumentals. The range of musical styles is truly eclectic, and no track ever outstays its welcome. Spacey reverbed Farfisa licks, folksy acoustic guitars, found sounds, latin percussion, musique concrête, piano jazz, flamenco, proto-heavy metal and even a touch of uncharacteristic country-pop make successive appearances. Quicksilver, the only lengthy track at just over seven minutes, shows the influence of Georgy Ligeti’s atonal orchestrations as used in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The jazzy, freeform piano-and-percussion Up The Khyber loops wildly around the stereo plane. The Nile Song is grunge twenty years before Nirvana and Mudhoney, though its bewildering series of key changes would certainly bemuse such later acts. Cirrus Minor is delightful space-rock with an incongruous accompaniment of birdsong. The gentle Crying Song features vibes and a gorgeous, nagging bass riff hook.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about More is that it was completely written and recorded in just two weeks: a contrast to the increasingly lengthy compositional and recording periods that Floyd were employing for their mainstream albums. Truly, sometimes less can be More.

“The Nile Song”

:D CD Reissue | 2004 | EMI | at amazon ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1969 | Harvest | at ebay ]

King Crimson “In The Court Of The Crimson King”

| Prog,Psych
I bought In The Court Of The Crimson King straight after seeing Crimson support the Rolling Stones at the Hyde Park free concert in 1969. The then almost unknown Crimson delivered by far the strongest set of the day. I’ve listened to it periodically over the ensuing forty years, first on vinyl and latterly remixed on CD, and it still impresses me.
There are some fine musicians here. Bandleader and composer Robert Fripp can rock out on guitar with the best of the rest, but is happiest on avant-garde improvisations with a cool mellow tone. Drummer Mike Giles has all the jazzy chops. Bassist Greg Lake is also a clear-voiced, expressive singer. Probably the most talented member is Ian McDonald, who covers all keyboards and all wind instruments; a master of the Mellotron, his flute work is also particularly praiseworthy.
The album boasts but five tracks, all of which are basically straightforward songs on simple chord sequences with lyrics, courtesy of lyricist and poet Pete Sinfield, mostly incorporating the usual science-fantasy noodlings of the era, but with each song featuring a contrasting freeform instrumental section. 21st Century Schizoid Man leads off with a nightmarish, distorted vision of a Michael Moorcock world, giving way to a fractured unison passage with impressive ensemble playing from all four musicians. I Talk To The Wind is a mellow, elegiac piece featuring gorgeous muted licks throughout from Fripp. Epitaph, my favourite track, invites comparisons with contemporaneous Moody Blues, being a powerful song drenched in Mellotron strings. Moonchild is another mellow epic with a long coda in which Fripp’s guitar holds an extended freeform conversation with McDonald’s Fender Rhodes, while Giles politely tries to horn in on the discussion. The Court Of The Crimson King, the band’s signature tune, closes proceedings in powerful style, ending with a charming nursery pipe organ recapitulation of the main theme.
There’s a lot of variation in dynamics here; the CD helpfully eliminates the annoyance caused by vinyl surface noise during the quieter passages. If I have any criticisms, they are minor: the use of a similar, slightly plodding 4/4 time signature  throughout, and the long coda of Moonchild perhaps rather outstaying its welcome. However, this remains a classic of early prog, and one arguably not bettered by any later lineup of Crimson. For immediately after the ensuing lengthy US tour, McDonald and Giles both quit, and Lake abandoned ship during the recording of the follow-up In The Wake Of Poseidon, leaving Fripp to build again from scratch. He probably didn’t succeed at this level again till the brilliant Belew/Levin/Bruford guitar-based lineup of the eighties.

In The Court of the Crimson King

I bought In The Court Of The Crimson King straight after seeing Crimson support the Rolling Stones at the Hyde Park free concert in 1969. The then almost unknown Crimson delivered by far the strongest set of the day. I’ve listened to it periodically over the ensuing forty years, first on vinyl and latterly remixed on CD, and it still impresses me.

There are some fine musicians here. Bandleader and composer Robert Fripp can rock out on guitar with the best of the rest, but is happiest on avant-garde improvisations with a cool mellow tone. Drummer Mike Giles has all the jazzy chops. Bassist Greg Lake is also a clear-voiced, expressive singer. Probably the most talented member is Ian McDonald, who covers all keyboards and all wind instruments; a master of the Mellotron, his flute work is also particularly praiseworthy.

The album boasts but five tracks, all of which are basically straightforward songs on simple chord sequences with lyrics, courtesy of lyricist and poet Pete Sinfield, mostly incorporating the usual science-fantasy noodlings of the era, but with each song featuring a contrasting freeform instrumental section. 21st Century Schizoid Man leads off with a nightmarish, distorted vision of a Michael Moorcock world, giving way to a fractured unison passage with impressive ensemble playing from all four musicians. I Talk To The Wind is a mellow, elegiac piece featuring gorgeous muted licks throughout from Fripp. Epitaph, my favourite track, invites comparisons with contemporaneous Moody Blues, being a powerful song drenched in Mellotron strings. Moonchild is another mellow epic with a long coda in which Fripp’s guitar holds an extended freeform conversation with McDonald’s Fender Rhodes, while Giles politely tries to horn in on the discussion. The Court Of The Crimson King, the band’s signature tune, closes proceedings in powerful style, ending with a charming nursery pipe organ recapitulation of the main theme.

There’s a lot of variation in dynamics here; the CD helpfully eliminates the annoyance caused by vinyl surface noise during the quieter passages. If I have any criticisms, they are minor: the use of a similar, slightly plodding 4/4 time signature  throughout, and the long coda of Moonchild perhaps rather outstaying its welcome. However, this remains a classic of early prog, and one arguably not bettered by any later lineup of Crimson. For immediately after the ensuing lengthy US tour, McDonald and Giles both quit, and Lake abandoned ship during the recording of the follow-up In The Wake Of Poseidon, leaving Fripp to build again from scratch. He probably didn’t succeed at this level again till the brilliant Belew/Levin/Bruford guitar-based lineup of the eighties.

:) Original Vinyl | 1969 | Atlantic | search ebay ]
:D CD Reissue | 2004 | Discipline | amazon ]

Chicago Transit Authority (self-titled)

| Art,Classic Rock,Pop,Prog,Psych,RnB
Opinion on what is surely one of the finest debut albums ever made tends to be somewhat polarised these days. Detractors of what eventually, sadly, unforgivably, metamorphosed into the ultimate slush-rock outfit simply ignore it; admirers of the earlier stuff who nonetheless try to distance themselves from the currently unfashionable genre of jazz-rock describe the band as a mainstream hard-rock quartet accompanied by a more-adventurous-than-average Memphis-style horn trio. In fact Chicago Transit Authority has real jazz in bucketloads, alongside blissed-out rock, blues, funk-soul and some wilful psychedelic oddness, particularly in the lyrics and occasional sound effects. And in this instance the mixture really does work.
The first thing that hits your consciousness is the bullhorn-brash confidence of this nascent outfit. Seven unknown but uncompromising musicians offer as their first recording a double album containing eleven lengthy tracks (and one short prologue). The staple fare is meticulously arranged songs, some of which contain enough modulations and changes of tempo to allow them to qualify as suites. Heaven knows how long they rehearsed to get their sh*t this tight, but they are that good and they know it. What other band had the chutzpah to include on its debut a seven-minute solo guitar piece comprising only electronic feedback, long before Lou Reed or Neil Young did so? No wonder the guitarist can be heard laughing into the amplifier mike half way through the piece. He’s not giving the finger to the record company; he’s saying, this isn’t gratuitous noise, this is our art: make up your own mind whether it’s valid.
All the musicians are excellent, but in particular guitarist Terry Kath can give Hendrix a fright in the sustain/widdling stakes (Poem 58: reportedly, Jimi rated him as a peer) and can perform a continually-inventive twelve-minute strut on the pentatonic comparable to Frank Zappa at his best (Liberation). Yes, the horns can throw in the choreographed stabs, but they show themselves capable of ambitious yet economical improv soloing (Introduction). Together, the septet move beyond finely honed jazzy pieces (Beginnings) through a bludgeoning riff-blues (South California Purples) to a latin-drenched drum solo (the fine cover of Steve Winwood’s I’m A Man), while the lyrics veer from hippy-dippy mysticism (Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?) to abrupt political statement (Prologue, August 29, 1968 / Someday). The latter segues seamlessly and intelligently out of the former, a location recording of a chanting civil rights crowd, to drum the message home.
Chicago’s second release was also a jazzy double album, but the experimental weirdness was gone, leaving only a more sterile virtuosity. After that, it was downhill all the way to If You Leave Me Now. Chicago Transit Authority stands as their finest.

Chicago Transit Authority

Opinion on what is surely one of the finest debut albums ever made tends to be somewhat polarised these days. Detractors of what eventually, sadly, unforgivably, metamorphosed into the ultimate slush-rock outfit simply ignore it; admirers of the earlier stuff who nonetheless try to distance themselves from the currently unfashionable genre of jazz-rock describe the band as a mainstream hard-rock quartet accompanied by a more-adventurous-than-average Memphis-style horn trio. In fact Chicago Transit Authority has real jazz in bucketloads, alongside blissed-out rock, blues, funk-soul and some wilful psychedelic oddness, particularly in the lyrics and occasional sound effects. And in this instance the mixture really does work.

The first thing that hits your consciousness is the bullhorn-brash confidence of this nascent outfit. Seven unknown but uncompromising musicians offer as their first recording a double album containing eleven lengthy tracks (and one short prologue). The staple fare is meticulously arranged songs, some of which contain enough modulations and changes of tempo to allow them to qualify as suites. Heaven knows how long they rehearsed to get their sh*t this tight, but they are that good and they know it. What other band had the chutzpah to include on its debut a seven-minute solo guitar piece comprising only electronic feedback, long before Lou Reed or Neil Young did so? No wonder the guitarist can be heard laughing into the amplifier mic half way through the piece. He’s not giving the finger to the record company; he’s saying, this isn’t gratuitous noise, this is our art: make up your own mind whether it’s valid.

All the musicians are excellent, but in particular guitarist Terry Kath can give Hendrix a fright in the sustain/widdling stakes (Poem 58: reportedly, Jimi rated him as a peer) and can perform a continually-inventive twelve-minute strut on the pentatonic comparable to Frank Zappa at his best (Liberation). Yes, the horns can throw in the choreographed stabs, but they show themselves capable of ambitious yet economical improv soloing (Introduction). Together, the septet move beyond finely honed jazzy pieces (Beginnings) through a bludgeoning riff-blues (South California Purples) to a latin-drenched drum solo (the fine cover of Steve Winwood’s I’m A Man), while the lyrics veer from hippy-dippy mysticism (Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?) to abrupt political statement (Prologue, August 29, 1968 / Someday). The latter segues seamlessly and intelligently out of the former, a location recording of a chanting civil rights crowd, to drum the message home.

Chicago’s second release was also a jazzy double album, but the experimental weirdness was gone, leaving only a more sterile virtuosity. After that, it was downhill all the way to If You Leave Me Now. Chicago Transit Authority stands as their finest.

“Prologue, August 29, 1968”

:D CD Reissue | 2002 | Rhino | amazon ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1969 | Columbia | search ebay ]
;) MP3 Album | download ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

Blind Faith “Blind Faith”

| Classic Rock,Pop,RnB
The story of Blind Faith “ was ever such a star-crossed project more appropriately named? “ is so thoroughly documented that there’s no need to elaborate upon it here. (For those around but inexplicably absent from Planet Rock during 1969, and for those then unborn, the excellent booklet in this CD provides a concise and honest history.) Objective examinations of the band’s music, however, are thinner on the ground.
In June 1969, fired by the blaring press announcements of Blind Faith’s formation, I hitch-hiked to London’s Hyde Park to see the free concert that would prove to be their only UK appearance. Far smaller than the hype, of course, the performance drew mixed reviews, but I recall being well enough impressed by the quality songs with Steve Winwood’s solid, soulful fronting on vocal and Fender Rhodes and Eric Clapton’s uncharacteristically diffident but technically faultless guitar playing. On encountering the film of the show on TV almost exactly forty years later, I found no reason to change my mind.
When the LP was announced I was early in the queue. When it proved to be the first album to be released in the UK in stereo only, I had to purchase a stereo-compatible tone arm and cartridge and fit them to my old mono record player simply to accommodate the new purchase. I was impressed with the record then, and remain so today. I’m well aware that this is not a universal view, and will read comments to this post with interest.
Of the original six tracks, Winwood’s Had To Cry Today and Clapton’s Presence Of The Lord are rock music of the highest quality, and IMHO feature Steve’s voice and Eric’s guitar at their absolute zenith. A younger Clapton once said that his ambition was to make an audience cry with just one note; the final bend of his solo on Presence damn nearly makes it happen. Can’t Find My Way Home is a charming unplugged ensemble rendition spoilt only by rather obtrusive cymbal splashes from  Ginger Baker “ the only blemish on an otherwise excellent Jimmy Miller production –  whilst Baker’s own Do What You Like stands comparison with Steely Dan’s Do It Again in its rambling linear structure and funky feel. The weakest offering, Sea Of Joy, is rescued by a superbly melodic violin solo from Rick Grech. The compositional strength of the tracks is undeniable; Had To Cry Today was strong enough to justify covering by Joe Bonamassa as the title track of his album, whilst Faith’s tasteful reinvention of Buddy Holly’s Well All Right was covered almost verbatim by Carlos Santana.
The original 35-minute vinyl album may have represented just about all the quality material Faith had to offer, but there was no filler. By contrast the latest reissue CD, the deluxe 2-CD version, includes as bonus tracks several alternative (and inferior) versions of the original songs, a couple of other songs not deemed (quite rightly) strong enough to release first time round, and a second discful of rehearsal jams of historic interest only. New converts should concentrate on the first six tracks here, and also if possible seek out the DVD of the Hyde Park concert, which is by no means faultless as cinema but is an above-average record of a historic sixties concert.

Blind Faith

The story of Blind Faith “ was ever such a star-crossed project more appropriately named? “ is so thoroughly documented that there’s no need to elaborate upon it here. (For those around but inexplicably absent from Planet Rock during 1969, and for those then unborn, the excellent booklet in this CD provides a concise and honest history.) Objective examinations of the band’s music, however, are thinner on the ground.

In June 1969, fired by the blaring press announcements of Blind Faith’s formation, I hitch-hiked to London’s Hyde Park to see the free concert that would prove to be their only UK appearance. Far smaller than the hype, of course, the performance drew mixed reviews, but I recall being well enough impressed by the quality songs with Steve Winwood’s solid, soulful fronting on vocal and Fender Rhodes and Eric Clapton’s uncharacteristically diffident but technically faultless guitar playing. On encountering the film of the show on TV almost exactly forty years later, I found no reason to change my mind.

When the LP was announced I was early in the queue. When it proved to be the first album to be released in the UK in stereo only, I had to purchase a stereo-compatible tone arm and cartridge and fit them to my old mono record player simply to accommodate the new purchase. I was impressed with the record then, and remain so today. I’m well aware that this is not a universal view, and will read comments to this post with interest.

Of the original six tracks, Winwood’s Had To Cry Today and Clapton’s Presence Of The Lord are rock music of the highest quality, and feature Steve’s voice and Eric’s guitar at their absolute zenith. A younger Clapton once said that his ambition was to make an audience cry with just one note; the final bend of his solo on Presence damn nearly makes it happen. Can’t Find My Way Home is a charming unplugged ensemble rendition spoilt only by rather obtrusive cymbal splashes from  Ginger Baker “ the only blemish on an otherwise excellent Jimmy Miller production –  whilst Baker’s own Do What You Like stands comparison with Steely Dan’s Do It Again in its rambling linear structure and funky feel. The weakest offering, Sea Of Joy, is rescued by a superbly melodic violin solo from Rick Grech. The compositional strength of the tracks is undeniable; Had To Cry Today was strong enough to justify covering by Joe Bonamassa as the title track of his album, whilst Faith’s tasteful reinvention of Buddy Holly’s Well All Right was covered almost verbatim by Carlos Santana.

The original 35-minute vinyl album may have represented just about all the quality material Faith had to offer, but there was no filler. By contrast the latest reissue CD, the deluxe 2-CD version, includes as bonus tracks several alternative (and inferior) versions of the original songs, a couple of other songs not deemed (quite rightly) strong enough to release first time round, and a second discful of rehearsal jams of historic interest only. New converts should concentrate on the first six tracks here, and also if possible seek out the DVD of the Hyde Park concert, which is by no means faultless as cinema but is an above-average record of a historic sixties concert.

“Presence of the Lord”

:D CD Reissue | 2001 | Polydor | amazon ]
:) Original Vinyl |  1969 | Atco | ebay ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

John Mayall “Blues From Laurel Canyon”

| Psych,RnB

Blues From Laurel Canyon

John Mayall is of course the Godfather Of British Blues, first recording in 1965 and still touring and recording prolifically today, well into his seventies. My favourite of his many albums is this offering from 1968, which is both a collection of original blues-based songs with contemporary psych overtones and also a diary in music of his three-week vacation in Los Angeles that summer: either a song cycle or a concept album, according to your own definitions, but certainly unique among the slew of straightforward blues albums being produced by white performers on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Starting with the roar of a jet swinging across the stereo plane – a device cheekily lifted from the Beatles’ White Album – the record chronicles Mayall’s discovery of the heady delights of late sixties LA, his first sojourn in Laurel Canyon where he would later make his permanent home, his stay as a guest of Canned Heat with whom Mayall struck up a strong and lasting rapport “ later, both Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor would leave Heat to join Mayall’s band “ and, in considerable detail, his mission to get laid. It ends with a rueful recollection of the brief love affair and a moody anticipation of returning home to the UK.

In fact this is a collection of many moods, from joyous exploration of glamourous new surroundings, to irritable self-examination following a bust-up with an unidentified companion, to deep and intimate relations in the bedroom. The changes of mood are emphasised by Mayall’s constant switches of instrumentation “ he was already virtuosic on piano, Hammond, and mouth-harp and capable on guitar “ and by the careful segue of each track into the next, plus the pitching of each song in a different key. Every one of the twelve keys of the chromatic scale, except F#, is used (try playing blues in Db or Ab, if you will).

Backup is provided by the rock-solid rhythm section of drummer Colin Allen and 18-year-old bassist Stephen Thompson, while guitarist Mick Taylor, on his final studio outing with Mayall prior to joining the Stones, wields his Les Paul always tastefully and often excitingly throughout. Production by Decca’s veteran producer Mike Vernon is commendable for those eight-track days.

My standout tracks are Ready To Ride, on which Mayall’s overactive hormones fuel some explosive harp work, The Bear, whose intro pays tribute to a well-known Heat riff before segueing into a delightful piano-led country blues dedicated to Bob Hite, and Miss James, in which the Hammond reels through jazzy changes in their best Jimmy Smith style. But individual tracks cannot do justice to this album; for best effect it demands to be heard in sequence at a single sitting.

“Ready to Ride”

:D CD Reissue | 2007 | United UK | amazon ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1968 | Decca | search ebay ]
;) MP3 Album | download ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band “Symphonion Dream”

| Country Rock,Folk,Psych

Symphonion Dream

Symphonion Dream was the last album recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band before Jim Ibbotson left and the band began to move away from its traditional jug band/bluegrass roots. The big question is why in 1975, when the rest of the First Division of country-rock practitioners “ the Eagles, Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay et al “ had been travelling for some time in the direction of simplified, stadium-friendly AOR, the NGDB went the other way and produced what I think is the best, and surely the quirkiest, psychedelic country album ever. The tunes are the band’s usual mix of originals and highly personalised covers; however this time the tunes are wrapped up in a sonic kaleidoscope of sound effects, seaside amusement park soundtracks, studio backchat, disconcerting segues, fade-in/fade-out interludes and odd instrumentation. So many familiar tunes, so many unfamiliar and occasionally unsettling treatments.

The album is bookended front-and-back by the eerie screech of an Aeolian harp, with a lonely tolling bell as prologue, finally fading out to the silvery chiming of the Symphonion “ a large Victorian musical automaton sounding like an orchestra of musical boxes. The original songs feature some truly offbeat ideas, with John McEuen picking Flamenco on solo banjo “ perhaps influenced by Bernie Leadon’s banjo opus Journey Of The Sorcerer on the Eagles’ One Of These Nights – and hammering the same banjo to produce steel band-like tones on the calypsoish Joshua Come Home. The more conventional tracks move smoothly from Hey Good Lookin’, played Bob Wills-style with Linda Ronstadt duetting Ibbotson on vocal, via a roistering Texas honky-tonk rendering of JD Souther’s The Moon Just Turned Blue, to the straight-ahead country-rock, all Telecasters blazing, of Bayou Jubilee. However, perhaps more memorable are the swampy, drone-laden treatment of that hoary old standard, The Battle Of New Orleans, replete with coda of marching drums and bagpipes, and the thumping bluegrass version of the Everlys’ maudlin (All I Have To Do Is) Dream, which revisits the Dirts’ version of Mike Nesmith‘s Some Of Shelley’s Blues. Musicianship and harmonies throughout are as accomplished as we’ve come to expect from these guys, with McEuen’s fiery five-string banjo usually well to the fore, and production by Bill McEuen (any relation?) is faultless.

Exactly what the Dirts were trying to achieve with this album escapes me “ perhaps a belated country-rock Sergeant Pepper? There is no conceptual theme as such, though the first four tracks on what was the second side seem to purposefully convey an atmosphere of the southern California coastline. Whatever: I enjoy eclectic albums that display a multiplicity of styles within, or even across, genres. This one never escapes being country-rock, but boy, does it stretch the boundaries.

“The Battle of New Orleans”

:D CD Reissue |2003 | Capitol | buy ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1975 | United Artists | ebay ]
8-) Spotify link | listen ]

Harvey Mandel “Cristo Redentor”

| Art,Prog,Psych

Cristo Redentor

This gently psychedelic album is another of my vinyl bargain bin discoveries from the early ˜70s, which I picked up only because I knew Harvey Mandel had played with my favourites Canned Heat and John Mayall. Best known as a sideman – he later auditioned for the Rolling Stones on Mick Taylor’s departure – this was Harvey’s first solo work, dating from 1968, and an impossibly young-looking Mandel is pictured on the back artwork, a diminutive figure dwarfed by his big Gibson 355. The grooves within demonstrate not only his virtuosity on guitar, but also why his tenure with Heat and Mayall was so brief and why the Stones declined to hire him. Mayall described his technique as Harvey’s wall of sound, which aptly encompasses his early mastery of controlled feedback through his customised Bogan amplifier, and his later featuring of two-handed tapping, well before EVH got hold of that particular trick.

This album is completely instrumental, a rarity in pop-psych terms; the only voice to be heard is that of a wordless soprano singer on the title track. However, the stylistic diversity of the tunes and the variety of the backing tracks means that it is by no means repetitive. It was mostly recorded in LA and Nashville, using the top rhythm section sessioneers of both camps: Art Stavro and Eddie Hoh from the Wrecking Crew, stalwarts of the early Monkees sessions, and Bob Moore and Kenny Buttrey, soon to anchor Dylan’s Nashville Skykine. The LA tracks also feature tight string and brass arrangements, while the Nashville ones benefit from Pete Drake’s sympathetic pedal steel accompaniment.

The album as a whole is the best late-night-listening record I know of, beautifully laid-back funky arrangements fronted by a bewildering array of restrained guitar tricks from Mandel, dazzling but never flashy or tasteless. The titles give the idea: “Lights Out”, “Nashville 1AM”, “Before Six”. “Cristo Redentor” is Portuguese for Christ The Redeemer, and this title track is the exception to the rule of funk, being a solemn, operatic piece.

“Before Six” features some of Harvey’s most mind-boggling sustain work, the sound looping wildly between the stereo speakers, plus a mouth-watering cameo on Hammond by longtime LA collaborator Barry Goldberg and tasty brass stabs throughout. “You Can’t Tell Me” is funkier than your average Nashville session, with Harvey wringing out the best Memphis scale licks I’ve ever heard, intertwining with Pete Drake’s slippery steel chords.

The CD reissue, on the estimable Raven label from Australia, dates from 2003 and includes bonus tracks from Harvey’s Canned Heat days and from his own short-lived instrumental band, Pure Food & Drug Act. None of these quite live up to the quality of the solo album tracks, though Heat’s “Let’s Work Together” “ the nearest Harvey ever got to being a pop star “ has a certain boozy charm.

On this CD release the two sides of the original vinyl have been reversed, probably to make the best-known track, “Wade In The Water”, the leadoff track. The original running order works better, so if you get hold of this CD, play tracks 6-10 followed by tracks 1-5 for the most satisfying programme.

“You Can’t Tell Me”

:D CD Reissue | 2003 | Raven | buy ]
:) Original Vinyl | 1968 | Phillips | search ]