https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/380475-dc-2133
Last week's attempt at a pure free-form rock show got hijacked by a bunch of tracks from 1970. They try it again this week, but are quickly thwarted by the likes of Jeff Beck and J.J. Cale. Lots of good stuff here, including half a dozen tunes making their Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut.
Artist: Paul Simon
Title: Still Crazy After All These Years
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1975
Whenever I hear Paul Simon's 1975 recording of Still Crazy After All These Years I flash back to an appearance the singer/songwriter made on Saturday Night Live the following Thanksgiving weekend. For his opening sequence as guest host, Simon came out dressed as a giant turkey and began singing Still Crazy After All These Years, only to stop after a few bars and say "I'm sorry, I just can't do it". Brilliant stuff, that.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Gramophone Man
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Ferguson/Locke/California/Andes/Cassidy
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Like most of the tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP, Gramophone Man combines rock and jazz in a way that has yet to be duplicated. Rather than create a jazz/rock fusion the group chose to switch gears mid-song. After a couple of minutes of a section that can best described as light rock, the song suddenly shifts into a fast-paced bop instrumental featuring Wes Montgomery style guitar work by Randy California and a short Ed Cassidy drum solo that eventually drops the tempo for a short reprise of the piece's main section.
Artist: John Lennon
Title: Mind Games
Source: Stereo 45PM single
Writer(s): John Lennon
Label: Apple
Year: 1973
John Lennon's 1973 single Mind Games traces its origins back to the 1969 Let It Be sessions, where Lennon can be heard singing "Make love, not war" (a popular phrase at the time). Another unfinished song from around the same time, I Promise, provided the melody for Mind Games. The song's title, along with many of the lyrics, were inspired by a book called Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space by Robert Masters and Jean Houston, which was published in 1972. Yet another repeated line in the song, "Yes is the answer", refers to Yoko Ono's art piece that got Lennon interested in Yoko in the first place. Ironically, the song was recorded just as John and Yoko were splitting up, a period that Lennon later referred to as his "lost weekend."
Artist: Derek and the Dominos
Title: Keep On Growing
Source: CD: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer(s): Clapton/Whitlock
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
After the dissolution of Blind Faith in 1969, guitarist Eric Clapton spent the next few months touring as a member of Delaney And Bonnie And Friends. When that group disbanded, Clapton and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock spent a few weeks writing songs together, "just to have something to play" while they began putting together a new band. Two other former members of Delaney And Bonnie And Friends, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, had joined Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs And Englishmen tour and reunited with Clapton and Whitlock once the tour was over. The group took the name Derek And The Dominos and began performing live gigs under that name while simultaneously serving as a backup band for George Harrison on his All Things Must Pass album. In August of 1970 the band flew to Miami to begin work on what would become Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. After a few days of mostly unproductive sessions, the band went to see the Allman Brothers Band in concert. Clapton invited the Allman's to come jam with the Dominos in the studio, which led to guitarist Duane Allman playing on nearly every song on the album. One of the few Allman didn't play on was Keep On Growing, one of the songs Clapton and Whitlock had written earlier in the year. The song was also released as a B side the following year.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: I Love You
Source: CD: Number 5
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
The first five Steve Miller Band albums were an eclectic mix of blues, psychedelia, jazz, country, folk, rock and even gospel. I Love You, from the fifth Miller LP (recorded in Nashville and appropriately titled Number 5), incorporates many of these elements, helped by guest harmonica player Charlie McCoy, with strong vocal harmonies from Miller, drummer Tim Davis and bassist Bobby Winkleman.
Artist: J.J. Cale
Title: Crying Eyes
Source: CD: Naturally
Writer(s): J.J. Cale
Label: Capitol
Year: 1972
J.J. Cale was, in his own words "dirt poor, not making enough to eat and in my thirties" when he first heard Eric Clapton's hit version of After Midnight, a song Cale had written and released as a B side in 1966. Born in Oklahoma City in 1938 and raised in Tulsa, Cale released several records as Johnny Cale on the Oklahoma City-based Chan record label before relocating to California in 1964, where he became the chief engineer at Leon Russell's home studio. Around that time he began performing regularly under the name J.J. Cale (reportedly to avoid being confused with the Velvet Underground's John Cale, although that band's first LP was still two years in the future). He cut his first of three singles for Liberty Records in late 1965, with After Midnight appearing as the B side of the third one in November of 1966. When Clapton's cover of After Midnight became a hit, Cale's friend and producer Audie Ashworth suggested he record a full album to take advantage of the song's success. That album was Naturally, released in 1972. According to Cale, Naturally was a collection of tunes I'd been working on for about 32 years. It was a collection that refined everything that had come out of me and weeded out all the bad ideas I'd had over 20 years. The album was the first of over a dozen albums by Cale, establishing what became known as the "Tulsa sound" on songs like Crying Eyes, the final track on the original LP.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Sophie
Source: LP: Wired
Writer(s): Narada Michael Walden
Label: Epic
Year: 1976
After dissolving the power trio Beck, Bogert and Appice, guitarist Jeff Beck participated in several studio projects before returning to the spotlight as a purely instrumental front man. His second solo album, Wired, featured his strongest supporting band yet, including Max Middleton (from the second Jeff Beck Group) on clavinet and Fender Rhodes electric piano, Jan Hammer on synthesizer, Wilbur Bascomb on bass and Narada Michael Walden on drums. Half of the songs on the album, including Sophie, were written by Walden, who would go on to have a successful solo career, winning three Grammy awards, including Album of the Year for the original soundtrack album for The Bodyguard in 1993.
Artist: Flower Travellin' Band
Title: Satori-Part V
Source: British import CD: Satori (originally released in Japan)
Writer(s): Satori
Label: Phoenix (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1971
Possibly the first Japanese heavy metal band and almost certainly the first Japanese psychedelic group, the Flower Travelin' Band was created as a side project of Yuyu Yuchida, a friend of John Lennon's who, having heard Jimi Hendrix and Cream on a trip to England, wanted to introduce Japanese audiences to this new kind of music. After returning to Japan he gathered a group of musicians together and recorded the first Flowerin' Travellin' Band LP in 1969. The album was made up entirely of covers of bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin. It wasn't until 1971 (and several personnel changes) that the FTB recorded their first LP made up entirely of original material. The album was called Satori, as were all five tracks on the album. It was worth the wait.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: The Wanton Song
Source: LP: Physical Graffiti
Writer(s): Page/Plant
Label: Swan Song
Year: 1975
I can't help but think that The Wanton Song, from the 1975 Led Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti, was inspired by Japan's Flower Travellin' Band, who were in turn inspired by Led Zeppelin. What was that Joni Mitchell said about circles?
Artist: James Gang
Title: Funk # 48
Source: CD: Yer Album
Writer: Walsh/Fox/Kriss
Label: MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1969
Cleveland's James Gang was one of the original power trios of the seventies. Although generally known as the starting place of Joe Walsh, the band was actually led by Jim Fox, one of the most underrated drummers in the history of rock. Fox, who was the only member to stay with the group through its many personnel changes over the years, shares lead vocals with Walsh on Funk # 48 from the band's debut album on ABC's Bluesway label (they moved over to the parent label for subsequent releases). Yer Album, incidentally, was the only rock LP ever issued on Bluesway .
Artist: Faces
Title: Borstal Boys
Source: LP: Appetizers (originally released on LP: Ooh La La)
Writer(s): McLagen/Stewart/Wood
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1973
By late 1972, a lot of people considered Faces to be little more than Rod Stewart's backup band, a perception that the singer himself did nothing to discourage. In fact, Stewart seemed to be buying into it himself, as demonstrated by the fact that he skipped out on the first two weeks' worth of recording sessions for the album Ooh La La. As a result, the album itself, released in March of 1973, has been referred to as "Ronnie Lane's album". To add insult to injury, shortly after Ooh La La was released, Stewart publicly declared it to be a "stinking rotten album" and "a bloody mess". Despite this, Ooh La La, which would turn out to be the band's last studio effort, went all the way to the top of the British charts, due in part to songs like Borstal Boys, which appears at the end of the original LP's first side.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Victoria
Source: CD: The Kink Kronikles (originally released on LP: Arthur or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
The Kinks were at their commercial low point in 1969 when they released their third single from their controversial concept album Arthur or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire. Their previous two singles had failed to chart, even in their native England, and the band had not had a top 20 hit in the US since Sunny Afternoon in 1966. Victoria was a comeback of sorts, as it did manage to reach the #62 spot in the US and the #33 spot in the UK.
Artist: Santana
Title: Everybody's Everything
Source: 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s): Santana/Moss/Brown
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
Santana's third album, released in 1971, was called simply Santana. The problem is, their first album was also called Santana. The guitar solo on Everybody's Everything, by the way, is not by Carlos Santana. Rather it was performed by the then 17-year-old Neal Schon, who, along with keyboardist Greg Rolie would leave the band the following year to form Journey.
Artist: Doors
Title: Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source: LP: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to do introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.
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