https://exchange.prx.org/p/607600
We've got some serious rock from the early 1970s this week, particularly during the first half hour. Then things get a bit more progressive, as we finish out with a pair of long tracks from a bit later in the decade.
Artist: Gun
Title: Race With The Devil
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Gun)
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Repertoire (original UK label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
One of the most popular songs on the jukebox at the teen club on Ramstein Air Force 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). Nobody seemed to know much about Gun at the time, but it turns out that the group was fronted by the Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul (who at the time were using 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: Ted Nugent
Title: Just What The Doctor Ordered
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 Just What The Doctor Ordered, 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: Bryan Ferry
Title: The "In" Crowd
Source: LP: Another Time, Another Place
Writer(s): Billy Page
Label: Island
Year: 1974
Bryan Ferry's first two solo albums, recorded while Ferry was also lead vocalist of Roxy Music, were made up almost entirely of cover songs, while Roxy's material was made up of original compositions by the band itself. The opening track for Ferry's second solo LP was a remake of Dobie Gray's 1964 hit The "In" Crowd. Needless to say, Ferry's version rocks out a bit harder than Gray's original.
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 Sabbra Cadabra, which finishes out side one of the original LP.
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Title: Superstition
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Stevie Wonder
Label: Tamla
Year: 1972
Superstition was not originally meant to be a Stevie Wonder hit record. The song was actually written with the intention of giving it to guitarist Jeff Beck, in return for his participation of Wonder's Talking Book album. In fact, it was Beck that came up with the song's opening drum riff, creating, with Wonder, the first demo of the song. The plan was for Beck to release the song first as the lead single from the album Beck, Bogert & Appice. However, that album's release got delayed, and Motown CEO Barry Gordy Jr. insisted that Wonder go ahead and release his own version of the song first, as Barry saw the song as a potential #1 hit. It turned out Gordy was right, and Superstition ended up topping both the pop and soul charts in 1973, doing well in other countries as well. A 1986 live version of the song by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble continues to get a lot of airplay on classic rock radio.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Jam (Footstompin' Music)
Source: CD: Survival (bonus track)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1971
Recorded during sessions for the Survival album, Jam (Footstompin' Music) was an early version of a song that would not appear on vinyl until the following year, when it showed up as the lead single from the album E Pluribus Funk. The recording heard here served as the blueprint for live performances of the song and differs slightly from the later studio version of Footstompin' Music.
Artist: unknown
Title: Ace Guard Snails
Source: LP: Rhino Royale (hidden track)
Writer(s): unknown
Label: Rhino
Year: 1978
Once upon a time (1973) there was a record store in Los Angeles called Rhino Records. By the end of the decade Rhino had become first a record distributor and then, by 1978, a full-fledged record label specializing in novelty records and later, reissues of recordings that had not appeared on major labels. One of their first novelty compilations was Rhino Royale, which featured, among other things spoken word pieces by wrestler Fred Blassie (Pencil Neck Geek) and Wild Man Fischer. Hidden between two of the tracks on side two of Rhino Royale is this ad for Ace Guard Snails. As to who actually wrote and performed the piece, your guess is as good as mine (which is that the folks at Rhino came up with it themselves).
Artist: David Bowie
Title: The Width Of A Circle
Source: CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s): David Bowie
Label: Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1970
David Bowie had a gift for reinventing himself pretty much right from the start. His earliest albums were largely acoustic in nature, with Space Oddity being about as close to rock as he got. Then came The Man Who Sold The World, which included songs like The Width Of A Circle, a progressive rock piece that borders on heavy metal. The piece had actually been part of Bowie's stage repertoire for several months before recording sessions for the album began, but in a shorter form. For the LP, the piece was expanded to eight minutes in length, with Mick Ronson's lead guitar taking a prominent place in the music. The second half of the piece had somewhat controversial lyrics, describing a sexual encounter with a supernatural being in the depths of Hell. For reasons that are not entirely clear, The Man Who Sold The World was released five months earlier in the US than in the UK.
Artist: Genesis
Title: Inside And Out
Source: Canadian import 12" 45 RPM blue vinyl EP: Spot The Pigeon
Writer(s): Rutherford/Collins/Hackett/Banks
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1977
After Genesis finished recording sessions for the Wind And Wuthering album the band members realized that they had more music than they could fit on a standard LP, and three tracks were left off the album. Those three tracks, including the five and a half minute long Inside And Out, were issued in May of 1977 on an EP called Spot The Pigeon. In North America the EP was only issued in Canada, on blue 12" vinyl that played at 45 RPM. Hey, whatever it takes to get it to sell, I guess.
Artist: Carpe Diem
Title: Réincarnation
Source: French import LP: En Regardant Passer Le Temps (also released in Canada as Way Out-As Time Goes By)
Writer(s): Yeu/Truchy
Label: Crypto (original label: Arcane)
Year: 1976
The mid-1970s saw the rise of several bands that combined elements of rock, jazz and classical music with the latest electronic technology to create something entirely new. In Germany it came to be called Kraut-rock, while in other countries it went by names like art-rock, prog-rock or space-rock. The French Riviera was home to Carpe Diem (originally called Deis Corpus), who released two LPs. The first, En Regardant Passer Le Temps, was also released in Canada under the title Way Out-As Time Goes By. The longest track on the album is Réincarnation, which runs nearly thirteen minutes. Although the album went largely unnoticed when originally released in 1976, it has since come to be regarded as one of the lost classics of progressive rock.
No comments:
Post a Comment