Artists That Time Forgot

In 1974 I was 21, a full time college student, working three jobs, and somehow having the time of my life. Music was a major factor in my life and, fortunately for me, there was an amazing amount of wonderful new music every month. Let’s take a quick look at some of the key album releases during the first three months of 1974. By the way, if you are interested, the picture above is Big Star (more about them below).

So get ready, set aside some quality time, and head back to the first quarter of 1974 with me. Enjoy…….

January 1974 Album Releases

The Way We Were-Barbara Streisand

I’m a rocker at heart and it probably surprises many of you that I bought this album when it was released but ……great music is great music! The only comments I have about the album are: What a voice and what an album. It would have been easy to play the title track but here’s one that I like even better……I think you will like it……

What are you doing for this rest of your like? I ask myself that question a lot more now that I’m older…..

Court and Spark-Joni Mitchell

Joni, part of my holy trinity of Canadian music (Neil, Joni, and Gordon), was continuing to evolve her musical style. Court and Spark started to add in some jazz elements but lost none of it’s introspection which is what drew me to her in the first place. I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my years and in 1974 Joni choose to write about one of them in a song…..It’s Down To You……

Everything comes and goes
Pleasure moves on too early
And trouble leaves too slow
Just when you’re thinking
You’ve finally got it made
Bad news comes knocking
At your garden gate
Knocking for you
Constant stranger
You’re a brute you’re an angel
You can crawl you can fly too
It’s down to you
It all comes down to you

Energized-Foghat

Foghat was an amazing boogie band from the 70’s and has gotten the respect that they deserve in my humble opinion. Here is one of Foghat’s masterpieces that doesn’t get the respect it deserves……Home In My Hand. If you were lucky enough to see them play it live back in the 70’s, as I was, I guarantee that you were entertained…….

Grevious Angel-Gram Parsons

I’ve written about the sad story of Gram Parsons as part of my Southern California Sound series. Grevious Angel was released after Gram’s untimely death in the fall of 1973. Brass Buttons is a classic (Poco did an amazing cover version that you might want to checkout) and you need to hear it straight from the mouth of the writer…..sing it Gram……

Sundown-Gordon Lightfoot

January 1974 was a great month for Canadian music releases with Gordon joining Joni in releasing a new album. The title track was one of Gordon’s biggest sellers but you dig a little deeper in the album to find the real treasure……Seven Island Suite…….

Look around at the morning, guess you’re doing the best you can
Surely you know that when you go nobody gives you a hand
Think of the air you’re breathing in, think of the time you waste
Think of the right and wrong and consider the frown on your face

February 1974 Album Releases

Kiss-Kiss

Forty years after the release of their debut album, Kiss is finally going to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame….it’s about time! This album wasn’t a hit, the band wouldn’t really take off until their release of their double live album, but I’ve got to give it to the boys….they had ambition. Listen to its Kissin’ Time and you will see exactly what I mean……

Badfinger-Badfinger

If you are a reader of this blog you already know that I have a soft spot in my heart for Badfinger and their incredibly sad story. This was the group’s first album after leaving Apple records and unfortunately the end was a lot nearer than anyone foresaw. The song I have for you today from this album was written by Pete Ham, I Miss You………

Damn it Pete….I Miss You! RIP buddy!

Radio City-Big Star

Looking back it seems ironic that Big Star released their second album the same month as the Badfinger release discussed above. September Gurls was maybe the best pop song of the 70’s and to this day very few people have even heard of Big Star…..it’s a fucking tragedy ……

Of course the entire Big Star history is pretty much one big tragedy. I’m reading a biography of Alex Chilton, the band’s lead singer, right now and I’m planning a post dedicated to Big Star’s sad story. Stay tuned for that…..

What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits-Doobie Brothers

The Doobies were going through some significant personnel changes in 1974, and more were on the way, but they managed to put out another great album in 1974. The song that I have for you today makes me want to be floating down a little southern river in a canoe…..laid back without a care in the world….

If you listen closely, you can appreciate some amazing steel guitar added by Skunk Baxter. He would be an official member of the group by 1975 as the band’s sound started to change. More about that next……

A New Life-Marshall Tucker Band

This was Marshall Tucker’s second release and it confirmed that they were not just a one trick pony. The title track from this album highlights everything that makes Marshall Tucker Band one of the best bands from the 70 (great vocals, amazing musicianship, and great songwriting)…..listen and be amazed……

March 1974 Album Releases

Kansas-Kansas

I’m a sucker for bands named after the states that they’re from and Kansas is one of the best examples of such a band. This was the debut album for Kansas and if you listen to the lead off song and it immediately let’s you know that you should expect great things from this band……

Bridge Of Sighs-Robin Trower

Jimi Hendrix was gone but we still had Robin to blow our minds. You can’t go wrong with the title track from this album….absolutely Epic……..

On The Border-Eagles

1974 found the Eagles, one of my favorite Southern California Sound bands, starting to move towards a more rock oriented sound. You wouldn’t know it from the song I have for you today, Ol’ 55, one of the few songs on the album not written by the group. The amazing Tom Waits wrote the song and the Eagles performance of it is something to be treasured. It brings back some amazing memories of driving back home from various girlfriends houses as the sun was coming up in my rear view mirror……

Get Your Wings-Aerosmith

On their sophomore album Aerosmith fully hit their stride. It was an amazing album and the start of a string of releases that would make Aerosmith one of my all time favorites. Let’s listen to Track 5 from the album, SOS (Too Bad)……in case you are wondering SOS stands for Same Old Shit…….

Somethin’s Happening-Peter Frampton

In 1974 something was at least on the verge of happening for Peter. The release of Frampton Comes Alive in 1976 would make him a superstar but you could see it coming by listening to this 1974 release. Let’s listen to the title song from the album, Somethin’s Happening……

Artists That Time Forgot – Arthur Gee

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on January 12, 2014

Posted in: Artists That Time Forgot, Should Have Made It. Tagged: Arthur Gee. Leave a comment

I discovered Arthur Gee in 1972 in a record store in the mountains of East Tennessee while I was visiting my grandmother . I had never heard of him prior to seeing the album in the record store but the cover of his album intrigued me (see above) and I bought a copy. (Those days, well before internet, were a simpler time and it was not unusual for me to buy an album based on it’s cover. I found some really great music that way and a few clunkers as well to be fair.)

The only record player that my grandmother had was an old, crank driven, Victrola that looked a lot like this…..

It used a wooden needle (not kidding) and played old 78 RPM records so I had to wait about a week when to play the Arthur Gee record after I got back home to North Alabama.

I was pretty excited once I heard the record! Arthur had a very interesting voice and the style of the songs on the album varied from a typical early 70’s folk singer songwriter style to a touch of San Francisco 60’s psychedelia. I was definitely happy to have purchased the album. Let’s listen to a couple of songs from it…….

Arthur Gee

I’ll admit that Arthur fell off of my music radar screen pretty quickly and I unfortunately lost my copy of the album in the 90’s during a time when I moved from a house to a one room efficiency apartment and had to greatly pare down my record collection (that is a whole different story that we won’t discuss on the blog!). Even though I no longer possessed the album, I continued to fondly remember Arthur’s music. Something I heard last week make me think of Arthur (and his music) and motivated me to do this post.

As I started to research Arthur I was shocked about how little information about him and his music was available on the internet. I was only able to find the two songs above from the self titled Arthur Gee album that I had purchased back in the 70s. Shocking! I gradually found a few more tidbits of information…….

Arthur (if that’s his real name) was Canadian and recorded a few demo songs back in the late 60s, several of which were re-recorded for his debut album that I had purchased. There was a very limited distribution of these early songs on an album back in the late 60s that was credited to just Arthur. I’ve seen several online references to this album being re-released by a Swiss record label under the title of “In Search Of” but have not been able to locate a copy of it. Let’s listen to a couple of songs that I believe to be from that album. Note: two of the songs appear to be versions of the same song under different names (Confessions and Tea Garden)…….

Arthur Demos/In Search Of

I enjoyed these songs and can see how the Arthur Gee album that I had purchased in 1972 was a natural progression from them.

As I continued my research I discovered that these demos had brought Arthur to the attention of Robb Kunkel, Larry Ray and producer Bill Szymczyk who were starting the Tumbleweed Records label. They signed Arthur to their label and made his self titled album their very first release in 1971. In 1973, the label released a second Arthur Gee album, City Cowboy, on which Arthur was backed by the Whizz Band. I was only able to find a single song on the internet from that album, Green Countryside,……let’s listen……..

City Cowboy

As you can tell Arthur’s sound had evolved between 1971 and 1973 but not in a good way in my humble opinion. City Cowboy would turn out to be Arthur’s last release and one of Tumbleweed Records last releases which went under in 1973.

I think Arthur had some real talent and should have achieved much more success than he did. Instead, he is yet another artist that time has forgotten! The most shocking thing from my research is how little information about Arthur is available today. If you are reading this post, and have any additional information about him, I would appreciate you sharing it by either contacting me via email or commenting on this post.

As always….let me know what you think……

And Epic Riff #4 Is………Spirit In The Sky by Norman Greenbaum

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on September 14, 2013

Posted in: Artists That Time Forgot, EPIC Riffs, Great Rock Stories, Rock History. Tagged: Norman Greenbaum. Leave a comment

I can still remember the first time I heard this song. It was 1970 and I was on my way home from school. All of a sudden this great song was blasting out of the car radio and I was immediately smitten. The guitar sound was amazing. Here is what Russell DaShiell, the lead guitarist during the recording session has to say about how that sound was achieved (thanks to Wikipedia for this information)…..

I actually played the lead guitar parts on Spirit, using a 61-62 SG Les Paul, a 68 Marshall Plexi 100w half stack and a home-made overdrive box in front of the Marshall. Regarding the ‘beep beeps’ as I call them, when the producer asked me to play some fills in between the verses, as a joke I said how about something spacey like this and I did the pickup switch/string bending thing. I saw him stand up in the control booth and he said “that’s it! let’s record that!” so we did. (There was no slide involved, just my fingers, and I used the bridge humbucker and the pickup switch). The fuzz part is Norman with a built-in overdrive circuit built into his Tele pickguard. I’ve been asked a lot over the years how I did the ‘beep beep’ guitar parts on Spirit, so for any guitar players out there who would like to learn how, try the following: Using a 2-pickup Gibson, set the neck pickup volume to zero, bridge pickup volume to max, with the pickup switch in the middle position (with Gibson wiring this gives you silence in the middle position). Do a string bend, picking the B & E strings together with one hit, just ahead of the beat, then use the pickup switch to kick in the bridge pickup in triplets (6 per bar) as you let the B string bend down two frets. I mainly used two positions on Spirit, which is in the key of A. For the low position, fret a stationary C note (8th fret) on the E string while bending the B string up to an A note for your starting-position, then pick the two strings together once while the guitar is silent and work the pickup switch as you let the A note bend downwards to a G. For the high position, do the same thing at the 15th fret holding a stationary high G note on the E string while bending down from E to D on the B string.””I must give credit to Jimi Hendrix as my inspiration for this technique (as well as for the double-string riffs I did at the beginning of the Spirit solo tail section). I saw him perform live in a small club in Madison, Wisconsin and loved the way he used his Strat pickup switch to create staccato feedback on songs like Voodoo Child. The difference is, on a Gibson you can start from silence and create the on/off effect, which worked well with the downward string bending thing I did on Spirit.

Let’s listen to the whole song so you can enjoy the great opening Riff in context…….

I am sad to say that Norman was a “one hit wonder” but if you are only going to produce one hit it might as well be something as great as Spirt In The Sky.

Oh……one more thing. You would never know if from the song’s lyrics but Norman Greenbaum is Jewish 🙂

Two’Fer Tuesday – Johnny Rivers

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on April 16, 2013

Posted in: Artists That Time Forgot, Great Rock Stories, Two'fer Tuesday. Tagged: Johnny Rivers. Leave a comment

Today’s Two’Fer Tuesday post celebrates the music of Johnny Rivers. I was introduced to Johnny Rivers music by an older cousin when I was around fifteen years old and I have been a fan every since. The thing that I find most amazing about his music is that he managed to make the leap from early 60’s rocker (Secret Agent Man, Maybellene, Memphis, Midnight Special, etc.) to late 1960s hippy ballad singer (Poor Side of Town, Summer Rain, Look to Your Soul, Going Back to Big Sur, etc.). I can’t think of any singer that made that transition as successfully. Let’s listen to a cut from each of these phases of Johnny’s career.

First up is a great 1966 performance by Johnny on the Hollywood Palace Tv variety show. Yes…..that is Judy Garland introducing Johnny’s performance.

Our second song is Summer Rain, which is a cut off of Johnny’s 1968 album Realization. On this album Johnny started to move his sound to a more contemporary, let’s say introspective, ballad sound that was just right for the late 1960s. The album made it into the top five and Summer Rain made it up to #14 on the singles chart. This is really good stuff that I still listen to today……

There is a lot more to Johnny’s career, so be looking for another post on him soon. Let me know if you appreciate Johnny’s music as much as I do.

Sequestration Countdown – “Dr. Strangelove” And The Death Of A Thousand Cuts

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on February 25, 2013

Posted in: Artists That Time Forgot, Politics, Republican Austerity Cult, Sequestration, Uncategorized. Tagged: sequester, Sequestration. Leave a comment

Sequestration: “Dr. Strangelove” and The Death of a Thousand Cuts!

By: Eugene Elander

With exquisite timing, during these final stages leading up to our pending federal Sequestration self-inflicted disaster, the Cold War’s notorious movie “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” has been airing on Blockbuster TV. In that bizarre film, a few deranged generals and a mad scientist start World War III through evading, avoiding, and destroying all of the safeguards against nuclear war, in an act of self-immolation which, unfortunately, takes the world with them. Much the same process has emerged during the countdown to a Sequestration disaster of epic proportions. In the present circumstances, however, America will suffer “the death of a thousand cuts” rather than a nuclear disaster.

Watching the Sequestration Waltz play out in this final week before the event occurs, nearly all observable effort is being placed on the usual blamesmanship between Republicans in Congress and the President in the White House. It makes little real difference which side has done more to cause this pending disaster, which will essentially shut down the Federal government — with consequences including the vast reduction of most vital government services, from air traffic control to the safety inspection of our food supply to the provision of essential funding to state and local governments. What is obviously needed is a sensible compromise between the Democratic requirement for both revenue increases and measured spending cuts, and the Republican determination that only spending cuts occur, with no tax increases on anyone — not even on any giant corporations which have essentially escaped meaningful taxation for decades.

Sadly, just as there was no possibility of compromise over all-out nuclear war in “Dr. Strangelove,” there appears to be zero willingness on the part of our two major political parties to compromise to avoid this Sequestration disaster. As the rhetoric becomes more and more heated, while the countdown to fiscal armageddon continues, leaders of both parties pour gasoline on the Sequestration fire in order to score futile political points against the opposition. Instead of reasoned debate, what America observes is essentially on the level of a third-grade food fight in the school cafeteria — a fight which nobody is going to win!

There are only a few days left to avoid so-called Sequestration, which would better be termed: The Death of a Thousand Cuts. The irony here is that, at the time when we were approaching the Federal debt limit at the end of 2011, Sequestration was nor really proposed as any sort of remedy. Rather, it was proposed as being so awful that our federal government would never, ever let it occur — the idea then was that we would be forced to solve our fiscal problems by this Sword of Damocles hanging over us. Whoever came up with that high-risk approach (and there are numerous versions of just how this faulty concept emerged) failed to understand the deep enmity between our political parties.

This enmity is nothing very new; not long after President Obama was elected to his first term, such Republican leaders as Senator Mitch McConnell stated publicly and frequently that the main goal for their party should be to block Obama from re-election while preventing any of his initiatives, such as what has come to be known as Obamacare, from passing in Congress. There is, however, a very significant difference between the two Parties on the matter of Sequestration. While the Republicans seem willing to go to any extreme in damaging the nation if they think it will damage our President, the Democrats continue to propose reasonable and balanced alternatives to a federal government shutdown. Now, America is waiting for those alternatives to be taken seriously.

Those proposals, however, seem to fall on very deaf ears and very blind eyes across the Congressional aisle. Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around — and, yes, it does indeed take “two to tango.” Still we must recognize that there is one major difference here: the Democrats devoutly seek to save America from a fiscal disaster, while the present crop of Congressional Republicans seem perfectly willing to impose The Death of a Thousand Cuts, Sequestration, as they believe it will damage their opponents more than themselves. Dr. Strangelove would indeed have understood.

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