https://exchange.prx.org/p/604932
This week's show features four very long tracks, along with a relatively short one to finish things up. Half of the long ones (and the short one) are making their Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut this week, including a live version of a Neil Young tune to start us off...
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Title: Southern Man
Source: LP: 4 Way Street
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
Neil Young stirred up a bit of controversy with the release of the album After The Gold Rush, mostly due to the inclusion of Southern Man, a scathingly critical look at racism in the American South. The song was soon added to Crosby, Still, Nash & Young's concert setlist, as can be heard on their live album, 4 Way Street.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1969
With the exception of John Lennon's 1968 audio collage Revolution 9, the longest Beatles track ever recorded was I Want You (She's So Heavy), from the Abbey Road album. The track alternates between two distinct sections: the jazz-like I Want You, which contains most of the song's lyrical content, and the primal-scream based She's So Heavy, which repeats the same phrase endlessly in 6/8 time while an increasingly loud wall of white noise eventually leads to an abrupt cut-off at 7:35.
Artist: Genesis
Title: Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers...In That Quiet Earth
Source: LP: Wind & Wuthering
Writer(s): Hackett/Rutherford/Banks/Collins
Label: Atco
Year: 1976
In its early years Genesis was known for incorporating fantasy elements into their music, mostly due to the input of lead vocalist Peter Gabriel, who wrote most of the band's lyrics. After Gabriel left the group they continued somewhat in the same vein with A Trick Of The Tail, but by the following album, Wind & Wuthering, many of the band members expressed a desire to move in a more commercial direction. This did not sit well with lead guitarist Steve Hackett, who additionally felt that his own musical ideas were being ignored in favor of those being presented by keyboardist Tony Banks. These factors would lead to Hackett leaving Genesis following the release of Wind & Wuthering. He did, however, manage to make one last contribution to the group in the form of an instrumental piece called Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers, which he co-wrote with bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford. The track segues continuously into another instrumental called In That Quiet Earth, which was written by the entire band.
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: Electric Light Orchestra
Title: Poorboy (The Greenwood)
Source: 45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: El Dorado)
Writer(s): Jeff Lynne
Label: United Artists (original UK label: Harvest)
Year: 1974
For their 1977 single Telephone Line, the Electric Light Orchestra went with a two-song B side...but only in the UK. Everywhere else, only one of the two songs, Poorboy (The Greenwood), was on the flip side. The song itself was actually three years old, having originally appeared on the 1974 LP El Dorado.
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