https://exchange.prx.org/p/577830
We're in free-form mode this week with a couple of long instrumentals, some hard rock and prog rock and of course, given recent events, war songs.
Artist: Ted Nugent
Title: Where Have You Been All My Life
Source: LP: Ted Nugent
Writer(s): Ted Nugent
Label: Epic
Year: 1975
Citing a lack of discipline among band members, Ted Nugent left the Amboy Dukes in 1975 and spent a few months away from the music business. Upon his return he formed a new band consisting of himself on lead guitar, Derek St. Holmes on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Rob Grange on bass and Cliff Davies on drums. Nugent's first solo LP was an instant hit, going into the top 30 on the album charts and eventually going triple platinum. With one exception, all of the songs on the album, including Where Have You Been All My Life, are credited solely to Nugent, although St. Holmes later claimed that all the tracks were actually written by the entire band and that Nugent had taken solo credit to avoid paying the other band members royalties. St. Holmes would end up leaving the band the following year midway through the recording of Nugent's second solo LP, Free-For-All.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: War Pigs
Source: LP: Paranoid
Writer(s): Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
Originally titled Walpurgis, Black Sabbath's War Pigs, the opening track on their second LP, Paranoid, started off being about the Witches' Sabbath (Walpurgis being the Satanists' analog to Christmas). As Bill Butler's lyrics developed, however, the song ended up being more about how the rich and powerful declare the wars, but send the poor off to die in them. Either way, it's about evil people doing evil things and the rest of us suffering for it. I guess some things never change.
Artist: Neil Young/Graham Nash
Title: War Song
Source: Mono 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1972
Around the same time that Neil Young was working on his Harvest LP he recorded War Song with Graham Nash and the Stray Gators. It was never released on an LP, although it did appear on CD many years later on one of the various anthologies that have been issued over the decades since the song was originally released.
Artist: Argent
Title: Hold Your Head Up
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: All Together Now)
Writer(s): Argent/White
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1972
Following the dissolution of the Zombies, keyboardist Rod Argent went about forming a new band called, appropriately enough, Argent. The new group had its greatest success in 1972 with the song Hold Your Head Up, which went to the #5 spot on the charts in both the US and UK. The song originally appeared on the album All Together Now, with a running time of over six minutes. The first single version of the tune ran less than three minutes, but was quickly replaced with a longer edit that made the song three minutes and fifteen seconds long. In the years since, the longer LP version has come to be the most familiar one to most radio listeners.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Now That You've Gone
Source: Chicago V
Writer(s): James Pankow
Label: Columbia
Year: 1972
Of the four Chicago area bands signed by Columbia's Clive Davis in 1969 (and marketed as the "Chicago Sound"), only one was a lasting success. In fact, after their first LP they shortened their name from the Chicago Transit Authority to Chicago, which they have used ever since. During their early years Chicago was one of the most prolific bands around, releasing three double-LP studio albums and a four-LP live album in the period from April 1969 to October 1971. That's ten LPs worth of material in two and a half years. In addition, a single-LP studio album, Chicago V, was recorded in September of 1971, but held back until the following summer in order to get maximum traction for the massive Chicago At Carnegie Hall live album. Although nearly every track on Chicago V was written by keyboardist Robert Lamm, the album does contain one new song from James Pankow, who had written the band's breakout hit single Make Me Smile and the wedding favorite Colour My World. Although not released as a single, Now That You've Gone, with vocals by guitarist Terry Kath, is one of the strongest tracks on the album.
Artist: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Title: Abaddin's Bolero
Source: CD: Trilogy
Writer(s): Keith Emerson
Label: Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1972
The first thing that comes to mind when I hear Abaddin's Bolero from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Trilogy album is how much it reminds me of the theme song from the TV series Dragnet. Apparently reruns of the original 1950s series ran on British independent stations throughout the 1960s, so it's likely Keith Emerson had at least heard the tune in his younger years.
Artist: Gentle Giant
Title: Valedictory
Source: CD: The Power And The Glory
Writer(s): Shulman/Shulman/Minnear
Label: Alucard (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1974
The Power And The Glory is a 1974 concept album from the British progressive rock band Gentle Giant. The album is a cautionary tale about the use of political power, and how, despite the best of intentions, that power inevitably corrupts those who use it. Musically, The Power And The Glory owes its structure more to classical music than to rock, although it uses modern rock instruments such as electric guitars, synthesizers and drums to the exclusion of traditional classical instruments (except for an occasional string instrument). For that matter, the band's classical influences seem to be more inclined toward relatively modern composers like Igor Stravinsky than the traditional "three Bs" of classical music. Valedictory, the album's final track, brings back themes heard throughout the album, but with a greater intensity than on the earlier pieces. The digital reissue of the album, incidentally, includes a Blu-ray disc containing animations of the entire album with a surround sound mix. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of things like Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Bringing Home The Bacon
Source: 45 RPM promo single
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1973
After the departure of original lead guitarist Robin Trower, the remaining members of Procol Harum, with new guitarist Dave Ball, continued to record quality albums such as Grand Hotel, although their airplay was limited to sporadic plays on progressive FM stations. One song that probably should have gotten more attention than it did was Bringing Home The Bacon, from the aforementioned Grand Hotel album. The group would experience a brief return to top 40 radio the following year with the release of their live version of Conquistador, a track that originally appeared on the band's 1967 debut LP.
Artist: Santana
Title: Soul Sacrifice
Source: European import CD:Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Woodstock)
Writer(s): Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label: Sony Music (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1969
The producers of the original Woodstock movie soundtrack album were less concerned with presenting faithful renditions of the various live performances seen in the movie than they were with making the best sounding album possible. Accordingly, they edited some of the performances and, in some cases, subsitituted other non-Woodstock versions of songs heard in the movie. One of the edits that actually worked pretty well was cross-fading the crowd singing a wordless refrain that has come to be known as the Crowd Rain Chant into Santana's Soul Sacrifice, the instrumental piece that lifted Santana into the upper echelon of rock royalty. What many don't realize is that over three minutes of Santana's actual performance is edited out of the track entirely. I usually play the full eleven and a half minute version of the performance, but, just for a change of pace, here is the track as initially released on the Woodstock soundtrack album, rain chant and all.
Artist: Billy Preston
Title: Will It Go Round In Circles
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Preston/Fisher
Label: A&M
Year: 1973
Although Billy Preston became a household name overnight in 1969, thanks to his guest appearance on the Get Back/Don't Let Me Down single by the Beatles, it wasn't until his seventh solo album that he finally scored a number one hit single on the charts. That song was Will It Go Round In Circles, and the album itself was called Music Is My Life. The song (and album) also features Preston's A&M labelmates the Brothers Johnson.
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