https://exchange.prx.org/p/551299
It's another trip back through the years 1976 to 1970, highlighted by an entire LP side of Jeff Beck.
Artist: Doors
Title: Ship Of Fools
Source: CD: Morrison Hotel
Writer(s): Morrison/Krieger
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1970
1969 was, if nothing else, a turbulent year for the Doors. The band had made headlines for a March 1st performance in Miami that resulted in lead vocalist Jim Morrison's arrest for indecent exposure. In July, the group released their fourth album, The Soft Parade, which was heavily criticized for its use of strings and horns and an overall more commercial sound that the band had previously exhibited. That same month Morrison gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in which he stressed the importance of country and blues to American culture. It was not a big surprise then, that the band's next album, Morrison Hotel, featured a more stripped down sound, perhaps even more so than their first LP. Side one of the album, subtitled Hard Rock Cafe, starts off strong with one of the band's most iconic songs, Roadhouse Blues, and ends on a similar note with Ship Of Fools. The group would continue in this direction and even improve on it on their next LP, L.A. Woman. Sadly, L.A. Woman would be the last Doors studio album before Morrison's death.
Artist: Todd Rundgren
Title: When I Pray
Source: 45 RPM single B side (taken from LP: Faithful)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Bearsville
Year: 1976
For his seventh album, singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Todd Rundgren decided to do something a bit different. The first side of Faithful was made up entirely of cover songs, while side two of the LP was all Rundgren originals. Both sides of the album got praise from the rock press, with Rolling Stone rock critic John Milward calling it "his strongest collection of pop tunes since...Something/Anything." The only single from the album followed the same cover/original pattern, with Rundgren's dead-on cover of the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations backed with When I Pray, a rather tasty tune utilizing exotic rhythms to create a hypnotic effect.
Artist: Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention
Title: San Ber'dino
Source: CD: Strictly Commercial-The Best Of Frank Zappa (originally released on LP: One Size Fits All)
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Discreet)
Year: 1975
Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention continued in the same vein as the albums Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe (') with the 1975 LP One Size Fits All. One of the highlights of the album is San Ber'Dino, which features "flambe vocals" toward the end of the track from one of Zappa's musical heroes, Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Cause We've Ended As Lovers/Thelonius/Freeway Jam/Diamond Dust
Source: CD: Blow By Blow
Writer(s): Wonder/Middleton/Holland
Label: Epic
Year: 1975
Following the dissolution of Beck, Bogert And Appice in 1974, guitarist Jeff Beck, after doing session work for various bands, decided to work on his first entirely instrumental solo album. To help with the project he recruited keyboardist Max Middleton from the second Jeff Beck Group and hired George Martin to produce the album. Filling out the group instrumentally were bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. The songs on Blow By Blow have a tendency to run together, including the entire second side of the original LP, beginning with Cause We've Ended As Lovers,a piece that first appeared on the 1974 album Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta. Beck's version, an instrumental, includes a dedication to fellow guitarist Roy Buchanan. From there the side continues with another Stevie Wonder composition,Thelonius, a tribute song that features Wonder on clavinet. The third track is Freeway Jam, an easily recognizable tune from Middleton. The side winds up with Diamond Dust, written (but not recorded) by Brian Holland, who had been Beck's backup guitarist in the second incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group and had gone on to become a founding member of a group called Hummingbird.
Artist: Queen
Title: Doing All Right
Source: LP: Queen
Writer(s): May/Staffell
Label: Elektra
Year: 1973
Before there was a band called Queen, there was Smile. Formed by guitarist Brian May and bassist Tim Staffell, the group soon recruited drummer Roger Taylor and, eventually, keyboardist/vocalist Farrokh Basada, who suggested the band change its name to Queen. Staffell left the band before the group's first album (replaced by John Deacon), but not before co-writing a song called Doing All Right, which Staffell originally sang lead vocals on. When Queen finally got a record contract in 1973, they included Doing All Right on the debut LP, with Basada, who by then had taken the stage name Freddie Mercury, doing the vocals in a style deliberately similar to that of Staffell.
Artist: Yes
Title: America
Source: British import LP: The New Age of Atlantic
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1972
Following the success of the Fragile album and the hit single Roundabout, Yes went into the studio to cut a ten and a half minute cover of Paul Simon's America for a UK-only sampler album called The New Age Of Atlantic. The track was then edited down for single release in the US as a followup to Roundabout. The original unedited track was finally released in the US on the 1974 album Yesterdays, which also included several tracks from two earlier Yes albums that featured an earlier lineup of the band that included guitarist Peter Banks and keyboardist Tony Kaye. Paul Simon's America was, in fact, the only track on Yesterdays that featured the classic Yes lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squires, Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: I Got The Blues
Source: LP: Sticky Fingers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Rolling Stones
Year: 1971
The Rolling Stones payed tribute to Otis Redding on the song I Got The Blues, from their 1971 LP Sticky Fingers. In addition to the band's early '70s lineup of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, the track includes contributions from saxophonist Bobby Keys and trumpeter Jim Price, along with an organ solo by Billy Preston.
Artist: Hotlegs
Title: Neanderthal Man
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Godley/Creme/Stewart
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Sometime around the end of 1968 Eric Stewart, the former member of the Mindbenders who had provided the lead vocals for A Groovy Kind Of Love, along with songwriter Graham Gouldman and a guy named Peter Tattersill, went in together on a recording studio, renaming it Strawberry Studios in early 1969. A deal with American bubble-gum music impressarios Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz to book the studio for three months gave the trio the cash to upgrade their equipment. Working with fellow musicians Lol Godley and Kevin Creme, Stewart came up something called Neanderthal Man to test what they could do in the studio with the new equipment. The experimental piece came out so well that they decided to issue it as a single under the name Hotlegs. Over the next couple of years the trio, joined by Gouldman, began the build up the studio's clientele, which included, among others, Neil Sedaka. Finally, in 1974, the four of them decided to become a real band, taking the name 10cc. The rest is history.
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