https://exchange.prx.org/p/570853
This week we feature, in its entirety, the musical piece that inspired one of the longest-running shows in public radio history: Pink Floyd's Echoes, from the Ummagumma album. Before we get there, however, we take a journey from 1967 to 1973, one tune at a time.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Wait Until Tomorrow
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Axis: Bold As Love)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Jimi Hendrix showed a whimsical side with Wait Until Tomorrow, a track from his second Jimi Hendrix Experience LP, Axis: Bold As Love. The song tells a story of a young man standing outside his girlfriend's window trying to convince her to run away from him. He gets continually rebuffed by the girl, who keeps telling him to Wait Until Tomorrow. Ultimately the girl's father resolves the issue by shooting the young man. The entire story is punctuated by outstanding distortion-free guitar work that showcases just how gifted Hendrix was on his chosen instrument. Why this song was never issued as a single is a mystery to me.
Artist: Gun
Title: Race With The Devil
Source: German import CD: Gun
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Repertoire (original label: CBS)
Year: 1968
One of the most popular songs on the jukebox at the teen club on Ramstein Air Base, Germany in 1969 was a song called Race With The Devil by a band called Gun. The song was so popular, in fact, that at least two local bands covered it (including the one I was in at the time). Nobody seemed to know much about the band at the time, but it turns out that the group was fronted by the Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul (who at the time used the last name Curtis); the two would later be members of the Baker-Gurvitz Army with drummer Ginger Baker. I've also learned recently that Gun spent much of its time touring in Europe, particularly in Germany, where Race With The Devil hit its peak in January of 1969 (it had made the top 10 in the UK in 1968, the year it was released).
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Got This Thing On The Move
Source: CD: Heavy Hitters! (originally released on LP: Grand Funk)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
From summer of 1967 to summer of 1970 I lived in Germany. This gave me a bit of a different perspective on the state of rock music during those years. For example, the Who, a band I had only barely heard of in the US, was huge overseas. On the other hand, bands like the Grateful Dead were little more than a distant legend in Europe at that time. On my return to the States in summer of 1970, I learned of the existence of a power trio from Flint, Michigan called Grand Funk Railroad. In the US they were universally hated by rock music critics, yet managed to set all kinds of attendance records throughout 1969 and 1970, pretty much single-handedly inventing arena rock in the process. They also managed to get no less than three albums certified gold in 1970 alone. Despite this, GFR was totally unknown in Europe, leading me to believe that the people who ordered albums for the BX were paying too much attention to the Village Voice and Rolling Stone magazine and not enough attention to actual record sales and concert attendance figures. Anyway, I soon got my hands on the album Grand Funk (aka the Red Album) and was totally blown away by the opening track, Got This Thing On The Move. There's a valuable lesson in there somewhere.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer: Dicky Betts
Label: Polydor (original label: Capricorn)
Year: 1970
The second Allman Brothers Band LP, Idlewild South, was notable for the emergence of guitarist Dicky Betts as the band's second songwriter (joining Gregg Allman, who wrote all of the band's original material on their debut album). One of Betts's most enduring compositions is the instrumental In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed, which soon became a concert staple for the group, and is one of two tracks on their Live At The Fillmore East album to get extensive airplay (the other being Whipping Post).
Artist: Focus
Title: Janis
Source: LP: Moving Waves
Writer: Jan Akkerman
Label: Sire
Year: 1971
In a sense Jan Akkerman is the prototype for the Scandanavian heavy metal guitarist archetype: technically proficient and blisteringly fast. Akkerman, however, is generally better known as one of the early jazz-rock fusion players. Janis, from the second Focus album, is a good example of the latter, with a touch of the former almost incongruously thrown in as well.
Artist: Sailcat
Title: B.B. Gunn
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): John Wyker
Label: Elektra
Year: 1972
Sailcat was a studio band formed by John D. Wyker and Court Pickett that included several prominent members of the Muscle Shoals music scene. Wyker had been a guitarist and vocalist in the Rubber Band (with John Townsend), while Pickett was the bassist/vocalist for Sundown, a band based in Macon, Georgia. The duo cut a demo of Motorcyle Mama that was originally discarded by the band, but eventually led to a contract with Elektra Records. The resulting album, also called Motorcycle Mama, was a concept album with a biker theme that included songs like B.B. Gunn (sung by Wyker), which was also released as the B side of the band's second and final single.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Sabbra Cadabra
Source: LP: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1973
The last great Black Sabbath album (according to vocalist Ozzy Osbourne), was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, released in December of 1973, when the band was at its peak as a functional unit before creative and personality issues began interfering with the quality of the music itself. The band, following an exhausting tour promoting their previous album that got cut short following a performance at the Hollywood Bowl that ended with guitarist Tony Iommi walking off stage and collapsing, began trying to come up with new material during the summer of '73, but soon decided to take a break and return to England, where they ended up renting Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The band found the atmosphere there inspiring, if somewhat sinister (they used a dungeon as rehearsal space) and soon were in the process of creating the music that became Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. At this time the band members' fondness for playing practical jokes on each other, combined with rumors of the castle being haunted, began to get out of hand, leading to the band leaving the place before their alloted time there had expired. The band soon got to work recording their new material at Morgan Studios in London, where Yes was working on an album called Tales From Topographic Oceans in the next studio. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman ended up sitting in on the instrumental Sabbra Cadabra, which finishes out side one of the original LP.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Echoes
Source: CD: Meddle
Writer(s): Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label: Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year: 1971
Meddle is often cited as the beginning of Pink Floyd's new direction that would define the band in the 1970s, leaving behind the last vestiges of founder Syd Barrett's influence. The most prominent track on the album, taking up the entire second side, is a piece called Echoes. The piece started off as an experiment; after setting some rough guidelines, each band member recorded their own part independently of the others, without hearing what anyone else in the band was doing. They then assembled some, but not all, of the various fragments into a running order they labeled as Nothing, Parts 1-24. They continued to add new parts to the piece under the working titles of The Son Of Nothing and later The Return Of The Son Of Nothing before settling on Echoes as a final title. The piece was first performed live, as The Return Of The Son Of Nothing, on April 22, 1971, with the final studio version of the track released in November of that year.
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