Following up on Friday’s post where we discussed crazy Republican explanations for events like Hurricane Isaac, I would like to introduce the legal term for such events, Force Majeure. In simple terms Force Majeure means events that are beyond human control. In even more simple terms that my Republican friends can understand…..Shit Happens.
While we are on the topic of Force Majeure, I need to point out that it is also the name of a 1979 Tangerine Dream album. I am particularly fond of the title track of that album and have selected it as my long song Tuesday offering for this week. The song takes a while to get started and transitions through several different themes so be patient and I think you will be rewarded at the end.
An absolutely amazing performance from 1973. Maybe more Marvin is the only thing that can snap me out of my mood….stay tuned for this week’s album of the week post.
As promised last Friday, I have another “Monday” song for you as this week’s Long Song Tuesday offering. It’s an amazing performance of Stormy Monday (the T-Bone Walker song) by the Allman Brothers Band at Filmore East in 1971.
The Wikipedia article on the song Stormy Monday provides the following comments on the Allman Brothers version of Stormy Monday. I highly recommend that you read the comments before listening to the song since it let’s you know who is playing the three main solos in the performance..
The Allman Brothers Band instrumentation of the song is typical of the group, consisting of vocals, two guitars, bass guitar, organ, and drums. It demonstrates a different style of music, however, from most Allman Brothers pieces, with a very slow tempo and softer feel, running at only 60 beats per minute. Duane Allman’s virtuosic guitar playing can be heard at this slower tempo, in the first of three solos, with Gregg Allman’s organ solo shifting to a jazz-waltz feel and Dickey Betts’ guitar solo ending it.
This recording is from The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East, the best live album that was ever recorded (in my opinion). Because I love this album so much we will feature it as the album of the week in the next day or so.
I feel guilty making this Badfinger post when I don’t really have the time to do the song or the band justice. Everyone probably knows the incredible tragedies associated with the band so I will not repeat them in this post. Just thinking about it breaks my heart all over again. Maybe I will be up to saying more in a post later this week. Moving on….
Today’s long song post features Timeless, the last song on the second side of the band’s last album for Apple called Ass. The song was written by Pete Ham and he is featured on lead vocals and on an incredible lead guitar. Let’s listen…
To top things off today I have a live performance of the song from a 1974 concert in Vancouver, Canada. Good stuff…..
Our feature attraction today is Rare Earth’s 1970 performance of I Know I’m Losing You.
Before
Rare Earth was on the Motown label and I Know I’m Losing you was originally recorded by another Motown group, The Temptations. Here is an amazing late 60’s Temptations performance of the song on the Smothers Brothers show.
After
Finishing off the triple play may be the best performance of the three and given the preceding performances that is saying a lot. The Faces were at the height of their power during this 1971 performance on BBC. What a band, what a song, who could ask for more……
I love this song by Gillian Welch. The lyrics are awesome. Put on your headphones, turn off the lights, and enjoy.
Believe it or not, this song was recorded on the first take. Here is what Gillian had to say about it in a Country Standard Time Interview about Time The Revelator, the album on which I Dream A Highway is the closing song.
“There’s a tremendous number of first takes on this album,” Welch says, pointing to “Elvis Presley Blues” and “I Dream a Highway” as examples. She refers to “I Dream a Highway,” a slow, twisting musical exploration that runs nearly 15 minutes, as “an extreme first take.
We were almost superstitious about it,” Welch says, because the composition was more “a whole moment in time” than a song. “We didn’t even talk about it until we recorded it,” she says, but adds, “I wouldn’t trade working on that (song) for anything.”
What was your favorite lyric? This is mine:
Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?
Now you be Emmylou and I’ll be Gram
I send a letter, don’t know who I am
I dream a highway back to you.
Can’t say that I know what it means but I sure enjoy wondering. Who could ask for more?
As promised a couple of days ago, today’s Long Song Tuesday post is from The Marshall Tucker Band. It is actually a three for one deal. This 20 minute live video from 1973 features live performances of Take The Highway, Can’t You See, and Ramblin filmed in Macon, Georgia which was where Capricorn Records was based. All of the elements I discussed in my earlier post are evident in this video. I think the performance of Can’t You See is particularly great featuring vocals and guitar from Toy Caldwell. I hope you enjoy it….
RIP – Toy Caldwell (lead guitar/vocals), Tommy Caldwell (bass), and George McCorkle (rhythm guitar)
Welcome to day three of our multi-day Canada Day music celebration which is combined with the 22nd edition of Long Song Tuesday. Today we highlight a Canadian group called Mahogany Rush.
Mahogany Rush was formed in 1970 by guitarist Frank Marino. I became familiar with them based on their 1975 Album named Strange Universe and it is the title song from this album that we are featuring today. Let’s listen….
I think you will agree with me that this is an amazing song. Clearly Frank’s guitar playing and songwriting were both significantly influenced by Jimi Hendrix. Let’s listen to another track from that album, Tales of a Spanish Warrior, that once again shows Jimi’s influence.
It seemed clear to me that Frank was “the band” and the other members of the group were basically just hired hands. This was made clear to everyone when the group was renamed Frank Marino’s Mahogany Rush before eventually evolving into just Frank Marino in the 1980s.
I bought, and greatly enjoyed, Strange Universe but lost track of the band after that. Their Hendrix inspired sound captured my interest for a moment but they did not have enough originality to hold my interest over the long haul.
It was 1968 and a there was a dynamic new live music scene forming in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The good news is that I lived only 80 miles away in Battle Creek, Michigan. The bad news is that I was too young to get to see any of the bands. I did get to hear about some of the shows from older kids in school and they sounded wonderful! These shows featured homemade pyschedelic light shows and a form of raw rock music that wasn’t getting played on the radio.
The biggest of the Ann Arbor bands was a group called The MC5 (MC stood for Mortor City) and they attracted the attention of Elektra Records (we will have a post about The MC5 later). Elektra sent a representative to Ann Arbor to sign The MC5 to a recording contract and while he was there he also signed a second band called The Stooges.
The Stooges were headed by a young former drummer named James Osterberg who would soon adopt the name Iggy Pop. The Stooges stage shows were already legendary when they were signed to Elektra. Iggy was willing to do anything to get the audiences attention including smearing food all over his body and cutting himself with glass shards. The remainder of the group were not accomplished musicians so it was probably a good thing that Iggy was such a showman.
The Elektra representative asked the Stooges if they had enough songs to fill an album and they lied and told him that they did. As a result, the group ended up having to pull an all night song writing session before going into the studio to record their first album. During this session they wrote three new songs to supplement the five that they normally played in their stage shows. The resulting eight songs would form the basis for The Stooges self titled first album. The album was produced by John Cale, formerly of the Velvet Underground.
As I promised in the coming attractions post from a few days ago The Stooges, as reflected in their first album, were punk before there was punk, heavy metal before there was heavy metal, and, at times, they were just plain strange. Although I am not a fan of rock critics in general, the Rolling Stone review of the album from October 18, 1969 made some excellent points.
The instrumentalist sound like they have been playing their axes for two months and playing together for one month at most…
The lyrics are sub-literate, as might be inferred by the titles: No Fun, Not Right, Little Doll, and Real Cool Time.
They suck and they know it, so they throw the fact back in your face and say, “So what? We are just having fun.”
Sounds like Punk to me:-) I am sure that as you listen to the album, starting with the first song 1969, you will agree that there are elements heavy metal in their sound as well.
That brings us to the plain strange aspect of The Stooges which just so happens to also be the subject of our Long Song Tuesday post for this week. Rolling Stone’s review might have captured it best in the following quote:
The only place where the album falls down, it falls with a resounding thud, “We Will Fail” is a ten minute exercise in boredom that ruins the first side of the record.
I have to admit that my initial feeling about We Will Fail were much the same as Rolling Stones’…..I have gotten up many times while listening to this album to skip this track. Over the years; however, the track has grown on me a little bit and I now tend to see it as a strange little ambient music interlude in a rocking album. Why don’t you listen and see what you think…..
Now on to the really good stuff. Here is the entire album, in all of it’s glory, featuring the following eight tracks: 1969, I Wanna Be Your Dog, We Will Fall, No Fun, Real Cool Time, Ann, Not Right, and Little Doll. Give it a listen and see what you think. I am betting that after listening to the first song you will be compelled to listen to the remainder of the album. As always let me know what you think….
Iggy and the Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 and continue to perform to this day. But it all started with: this wonderful little album; four kids that wanted to make noise; and simple songs about what was going on at that exact moment in time. And that my friends is what rock and roll is all about.
Its 1969 OK/War across the USA/Its another year for me and you/Another year with nothing to do
That pretty much sums 1969…I was there and I lived it…..
Today we have a combined Long Song Tuesday and Album of the Week post and it is a good one.
Travel with me, if you will, back to 1976. I am on my way to one of my graduate school classes, playing my radio at full volume with my windows down. Out of the blue, the best song that I have heard in years come on the radio and I am transfixed. I listen to the end of the song (even though it makes me late to my class) and find out that the group is named Boston. I am intrigued….the band has a incredibly clean sound, kick ass guitars, and a singer that rivals the Roger Daltrey’s and Robert Plant’s of the day. The song was More Than A Feeling and we will check it out in a minute but first let’s listen to today’s long song offering from that same band.
As it turns out, the band’s clean sound and kick ass guitars were the product of it’s founder, Tom Sholz. Tom was a genius graduate of MIT, working at Polaroid as an engineer, but completely obsessed with music. When Tom wasn’t at work he was investing all of his money in a home studio and working on demos. Even before he had a band he used his home studio to record demos for most of the songs that would appear on Boston’s debut album. The singer, Brad Delp, was just a natural talent (RIP Brad!). The results were amazing. Let’s listen to a live version of the song that originally caught my attention.
I was lucky enough to catch Boston on their first headlining tour and they were amazing. I actually had a bad seat on the right hand side of the stage pretty high up. It gave me a perfect view of Tom Sholz who had what was obviously a homemade box of effect pedals that he used throughout the show. I learned later that he was indeed a “mad genius” who had designed and built his own guitar effects. I finally understood where that awesome guitar sound came from!
Lucky for you, this is also an Album of the Week post because the Boston debut album was and still is an amazing record. Without further ado, I give you Boston…..
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 