https://exchange.prx.org/p/526931
It's back to somewhat longer tracks this week, as we take a journey from 1969 to 1975 that takes us places we haven't visited before. Then it's back to 1973 for a pair of more familiar tunes to wrap things up.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Country Honk
Source: LP: Let It Bleed
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1969
One of the biggest hits of 1969 was Honky Tonk Women, the first Rolling Stones release with the band's new guitarist, Mick Taylor. This was not the first version of the song to be recorded, however. According to guitarist Keith Richards, Country Honk, which appeared five months later on the LP Let It Bleed, is the song as originally written. Whereas Honky Tonk Women is a rocker supplemented by horns and piano, Country Honk is an acoustic piece, with Taylor playing steel slide guitar and guest musician Byron Berline adding Appalachian styled fiddle. Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman does not appear on the recording at all.
Artist: Jeff Beck Group
Title: Rice Pudding
Source: LP: Beck-Ola
Writer(s): Beck/Hopkins/Newman/Wood
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
As early as 1966, guitarist Jeff Beck was recording the occasional instrumental track with bands that had a resident vocalist. Rice Pudding, from his 1969 album Beck-Ola (the first to be officially credited to the Jeff Beck Group), is actually the longest track on that album, and has perhaps the most memorable signature riff on the LP as well. The tune features Beck on guitar, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Ronnie Wood on bass and Tony Newman on drums. By the mid-1970s Beck would be recording instrumentals almost exclusively, and would not release anything with a vocal track again until 1985.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
The second Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, generally got better reviews than the group's debut LP, mostly because of shorter tracks and tighter arrangements, both of which appealed to the rock press. Their version of Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, for instance, actually comes in at less than five minutes. The band's next album, Live At The Fillmore East, proved to be the Allman's commercial breakthrough, however; the fact that the album is made up almost entirely of long jams with extended solos from guitarists Duane Allman and Dickie Betts and keyboardist Gregg Allman only goes to show that sometimes what the public wants is not the same thing as what the critics think they should.
Artist: Lighthouse
Title: One Fine Morning
Source: LP: One Fine Morning
Writer(s): Skip Prokop
Label: Evolution
Year: 1971
After being dropped by RCA Victor in 1970 after releasing three LPs, the Canadian band Lighthouse signed with GRT Records of Canada, also releasing their records in the US on the Evolution label, a subsidiary of Longines Symphonette. Their first album for their new label was One Fine Morning, with an edited version of the title track hitting the #2 spot on the Canadian charts and #24 in the US. Recorded in Toronto, the album was the first to feature new lead vocalist Bob McBride.
Artist: Neil Young
Title: Are You Ready For The Country
Source: CD: Harvest
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1972
Some people think Neil Young's Are You Ready For The Country, from his 1972 album Harvest, is about certain geographical areas, while others see it as an invitation to join Young in an exploration of country music. Me, I think it's more about a non-city lifestyle. Who knows? Well, Neil Young, obviously, but he's never been one to explain his lyrics explicitly.
Artist: Black Oak Arkansas
Title: Up
Source: CD: Raunch 'N' Roll-Live
Writer(s): Black Oak Arkansas
Label: Wounded Bird (original label: Atco)
Year: 1973
I first saw Black Oak Arkansas play in a huge arena in Norman, Oklahoma in late summer of 1971. I had only arrived back in Oklahoma the previous day after spending a few weeks in New Mexico with my parents before attempting to revive our band, Sunn, as a potential bar band in Weatherford, Oklahoma, a college town sitting on the old Route 66. DeWayne and Mike, our rhythm guitarist and drummer, were newly enrolled at Southwestern College, and I spent that first night crashed out in a sleeping bag on their dorm room floor. The next day they planned to go down to Norman to see Grand Funk Railroad in concert, and they (and a couple other guys) took me along, figuring I could get a ticket at the door. When we got there the only tickets left were up in the high bleacher seats, while the rest of the group had floor seats. I dutifully trudged my way up to those high bleacher seats to watch the concert. That was about the time I started coming onto the acid, so I soon found myself imagining what it would be like to be a rock critic hearing a new group for the first time. This was actually pretty appropriate, since the opening act was a band I had never heard of called Black Oak Arkansas. They had just released their first album, and, as I later found out, their setlist pretty much followed the album itself. Two years later they released an album called Raunch 'N' Roll Live that included a whole lot of other tunes that weren't in their repertoire when I first heard them. Among those new tunes was Up, featuring a drum solo from Tommy Aldridge, who has since gone on to become one of the most respected drummers in the rock world.
Artist: Credibility Gap
Title: 16 Golden Greats
Source: LP: A Great Gift Idea
Writer(s): Shearer/Lander/Beebe/McKean
Label: Sierra Briar (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1974
Originally formed by news staff at the popular Los Angeles radio station KRLA in 1968 to present a satirical take on the news, by the mid 1970s the Credibility Gap consisted of Harry Shearer, David Lander and Michael McKean, along with founding member Richard Beebe, by then the only remaining newsman in the group. They performed regularly on Pasadena radio station KPPC until that station sacked its entire staff as part of a format change, at which point they began performing in clubs and concert halls. Their peak of popularity came with the album A Great Gift Idea. Released in 1974, the album combined musical parodies with short comedy bits such as 16 Golden Greats, which featured all four members doing impressions of famous comedians. With the exception of Beebe, who opted to remain a journalist, the members of the Credibility Gap went on to have successful careers in television and film, with McKean and Lander becoming well known as Lenny and Squiggy on the show Laverne And Shirley and Shearer and MaKean making the big time as members of Spinal Tap.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Sugar Magnolia (live version)
Source: CD: One From The Vault
Writer(s): Hunter/Weir
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1975
One of the most popular songs in the Grateful Dead catalog, Sugar Magnolia also has the distinction of being the second-most performed song in the band's history, with 596 documented performances, including one recorded on August 13, 1975, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco that would later be released on a double-CD called One From The Vault.
Artist: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Title: Still...You Turn Me On
Source: CD: Brain Salad Surgery
Writer(s): Greg Lake
Label: Rhino (original label: Manticore)
Year: 1973
By 1973, Emerson, Lake & Palmer had established somewhat of a pattern with their albums. Most of each LP was dominated by the bombastic stylings of Keith Emerson's keyboards, supplemented by Greg Lake's bass and vocals (and occasional guitar) and Carl Palmer's percussion work. There was almost always one ballad on the LP, however, that was penned by Lake, and often became the only single released from the album. On the album Brain Salad Surgery that ballad was Still...You Turn Me On. By this time, however, ELP was not even bothering to release singles from their albums, although Still...You Turn Me On did show up as a promo B side in 1974 that was never released commercially.
Artist: Genesis
Title: Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
Source: CD: Selling England By The Pound
Writer(s): Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label: Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year: 1973
In early 1973 Genesis was coming under fire by some British music critics for trying too hard to appeal to an American audience. The band responded with the album Selling England By The Pound. The title was chosen by vocalist Peter Gabriel, who borrowed it from a slogan used by the UK's Labor Party at the time. The lyrics of pieces such as Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, which opens the album, puts an emphasis on the decay of British folk culture in favor of rampant Americanization. The song itself is based on piano pieces composed by Gabriel, embellished with guitar parts from Steve Hackett and a choir effect (created on a mellotron) from keyboardist Tony Banks. Although Selling England By The Pound got a mixed reaction from both audience and critics at the time it was released, it has since gone on to achieve gold record status and has been cited by Hackett as being his favorite Genesis album.
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