The Southern California Sound (10) – Where Did These Guys Come From

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 28, 2012
Posted in: The Southern California Sound. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

As we start in on the 10th post of this sixteen post series it is probably a good time to revisit the premise that we started with back on March 19th.  Here is a summary of the premise….

“I was recently reading a paper titled “The Problem of Excess Genius”.  In this paper David Banks, a Statistician, notes “Geniuses are not scattered uniformly through time and space.”  Instead, there are clumps or groupings of genius that occur at specific locations and times. Specific examples of clusters that he cited were: Athens (440 BC to 380 BC}; Florence (1440 to 1490); and London (1570 to 1640). The “Problem” referred to in the title of the paper relates to the fact that no one knows why does this occurs or what the triggering conditions for such a cluster are?………As I began to research the Southern California sound I determined that the cluster phenomenon discussed in the paper cited above was indeed at work.  In a series of 16 posts (starting on Wednesday, March 21) I will build a case for that cluster and show how the musicians in two key foundational groups were the geniuses that created, refined, and influenced the Southern California sound over the time span of a decade.”

Looking back over the past two months, we have started to build the case promised above with the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield providing the foundational groups of the cluster of genius.  We have shown how various members of these groups formed  a number of what we might call the second generation of the Southern California sound.  In today’s post we are entering a new phase of the Southern California Sound, introducing the first group that we have discussed with no links to our foundational groups.

The original paper that I discussed explained the introduction of such new groups by hypothesizing that groups of genius like to hang out together.  This was certainly true with those attracted to the Southern California Sound.  Like minded artist from across the country travelled to, and congregated in, Los Angeles hoping to become part of the scene.   John David (JD)  Souther grew up in Amarillo, Texas.  Glenn Frey grew up in Detroit, Michigan.  Both of them were drawn to Los Angeles in the late 1960 because it was the place to be if you were an aspiring musician.  With some help from what has to be Fate, these two ended up meeting, becoming friends, sharing an apartment, and forming a musical duo that they named Longbranch Pennywhistle.  (Speaking of Fate, believe it or not the neighbor that lived below JD and Glenn was Jackson Browne!  These three would collaborate on some of the most amazing music that would add to the Souther California Sound in the coming years.  More about that in later posts)

Getting back to Longbranch Pennywhistle, after playing around LA for a while they were signed to Amos records and released a self titled album.  I have to say that this record has been somewhat like the Holy Grail for me in that I have searched for it for years without ever managing to find a copy.  Fortunately, the advent of the Internet has allowed me listen to the music from the album even though I never managed to find a copy.  If you are interested, you can download the album for free from Glenn Frey’s website (glennfreyonline.com).  Until you grab your own copy, let’s listen to one of  my favorite songs from the album, Rebecca.

I actually like this song, and the rest of the music from the album, but Amos records went out of business in 1971 and Longbranch Pennywhistle disbanded in 1971 with the duo never finding any significant success.  Even so,  the duo played an important role in the evolution of the Souther California Sound by providing  an entry point into the music scene for JD and Glenn who we will talk about much more in later posts.

One more footnote before we leave Longbranch Pennywhistle behind.  In 1971, after the duo disbanded, one of their songs which was not included on their album found it’s way onto the soundtrack for a movie called Vanishing Point which is one of my favorite movies of all time.  It is finally available on DVD so if you are interested you should be able to find a copy.  It has a great sound track and is basically one long car chase scene.  Anyway, here is I Can’t Believe It, the Longbranch Pennywhistle song from the soundtrack.

As a bonus, here is a trailer from the movie Vanishing Point.

The next post in the Southern California Sound series (The Southern California Sound (11) – And Then There Were Two) should be available by next weekend.

Album Of The Week #4

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 28, 2012
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You got a small introduction to the Ram album yesterday with our discussion of Too Many People as it related to the on-going feud between Paul McCartney and John Lennon.  Today, we feature Ram as our album of the week.  I mentioned yesterday that Too Many People was my second favorite song from the album…let’s listen to my favorite.

OK….I know this is a silly little ditty but what can I say.  I liked it in 1971 and I still like it today, no apologies on my part.

In general, Ram was not initially very well received by the critics (or by the other Beatles who all seemed to chime in with disparaging remarks) but opinions seem to have changed over time.  As noted on Paul’s website: “Despite an initially lukewarm Rolling Stone review, it was later hailed by them as one of his best solo albums.  As I have said many times in the past, who really cares what the critics think…all that really matters is whether you like it or not.  So…here is the entire album.  Take a listen and let me know what you think.

By the way, if you are lucky enough to have some spare change laying around you might want to checkout a deluxe book edition of Ram that was released this month with 4 CDs, a DVD, and a book.  In the US it goes for around $90 (US) so I don’t think I will be getting it.  If any of you buy it, let the rest of us know what you think.

Response Songs #3 – McCartney vs Lennon

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 27, 2012
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Paul and Linda McCartney released Ram in 1971 during the height of the litigations that were on-going as a result of the Beatles break up.

There was no, doubt, a lot of  bad blood especially between Paul and John.  Paul has admitted to taking a couple of shots at John in Too Many People from the Ram album.  The specific lyrics in question are as follows:

“You Took Your Lucky Break And Broke It In Two”

“Too Many People Preaching Practices”

The meaning of the first line clearly refers to the breakup of the Beatles, while the second line refers to what Paul perceived as John’s overly preachy activism (think of John and Yoko’s Bed In for Peace).  It’s my second favorite song from Ram so let’s take a listen.

In New York John was recording his Imagine album and the lyrics to Too Many People did not go unnoticed.  When Imagine was released it featured responses in two forms.  First, a post card was included in the album with a picture of John holding onto a pig by it’s ears which was clearly mocking the cover of Ram which featured Paul holding onto the horns of a Ram.

The second response was in the form of the scathing lyrics to How Do You Sleep which were clearly aimed at Paul.

“So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother’s eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you’re gone you’re just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they’ll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?”

Even after forty years I am still shocked by the bitterness of these lyrics and the personal nature of the attack on Paul.  Let’s listen to the song.

If there was any doubt that the Beatles were really over, this song pretty much sealed the deal.  Just thinking about it today makes me sad all over again.

Stay tuned tomorrow…we will further explore Ram as our Album of the week.

And The Answer Is….

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 26, 2012
Posted in: Who Is Sitting In. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Jimi Hendrix.  Jimi was playing the amazing lead guitar on the track while Stephen was on the Organ.  Kudos to Gerard who once again posted a comment with the correct answer!

As Gerard pointed out in his answer, Jimi was not the only famous guitarist that sat in on Stephen’s first album.  Eric Clapton played a second lead guitar part on an album track called G Back Home.  Let’s listen….(Eric starts to show up around 3:40 as best I can tell and then all bets are off!)

There was a pretty interesting group of backup singers on this track as well.  According the track notes on my original album from 1970 the backup singers included Rita Coolidge, Cass Elliot, John Sebastian, and David Crosby.  Not bad

Getting back to Stephen and Jimi, there continue to be rumors of an album worth of material from the two of them but I have still not seen any official release.  I have a couple of bootlegs that purport to from a recording session between the two of them, I have not way to verify their authenticity.

Who is Sitting In #3

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 25, 2012
Posted in: Who Is Sitting In. Tagged: . 2 Comments

This is the third in a series of posts that highlight classic rock songs which feature someone interesting sitting in on the recording session.  For this series I post the song on one day and identify who is sitting in the following day.  I hope you enjoy the concept and maybe learn some interesting music history in the process.

My selection for this post is a song called Old Times Good Times  from Stephen Stills self titled first solo album released in 1970.  Listen to the song and see if you can tell who was sitting in.

The answer will be posted tomorrow along with some additional background information.

Response Songs #2 – Lynyrd Skynyrd vs Neil Young

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 24, 2012
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For the second post in this new series we, once again, have Neil Young as the artist whose music generated a response from another group.  In this particular case, Neil wrote and performed a couple of songs about the south that rubbed the boys from Lynyrd Skynyrd the wrong way.  First us is a song called Southern Man, a song from Neil’s album After the Gold Rush that focuses attention on the south’s history of slavery and racism.  Let’s listen…

Not content with just one song about one negative song about the south, Neil “doubled down” by including the song Alabama on his Harvest album.  Alabama picks on the state of Alabama highlighting it’s poverty and the weigh of it’s burden from the days of slavery.  Let’s listen to it.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, decided to respond to Southern Man and Alabama with their song Sweet Home Alabama which calls out Neil in one of its verses:

Well I heard mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow

Let’s listen to Sweet Home Alabama.  As Ronnie Van Zant says at the beginning of the song….turn it up!   (sorry about the ad!)

In reality, there was a lot of respect, and no real animosity, between Neil and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Did anyone else notice that Ronnie Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young t-shirt in the Free Bird video I posted yesterday 🙂

This will not be the case in my next Response Song post which is based on real animosity and bitterness.  Stay tuned for that one, you don’t want to miss it.

Bonus….still haven’t had enough Skynyrd?  Check out their second album, Second Helping, below.

As always let me know what you think.

Long Song Tuesday #16/Album of the Week #3

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 22, 2012
Posted in: Album Of The Week, Long Song Tuesday. Tagged: . 2 Comments

Today I am combining a Long Song Tuesday and an Album of the Week post.  What group deserves such attention…the late great Lynyrd  Skynyrd that’s who!  Yes, I know that a group using that name continues to tour today but unfortunately the real Lynyrd Skynrd ended as a result of a plane crash on October 20, 1977 which killed three of the original members of the group including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant.

Lynyrd Skynyrd emerged from Jacksonville, Florida as a fully formed southern rock band that was ready to kick ass.  They named themselves after their high school gym teacher and produced an amazing first album in 1973, Pronounced Leh’-nerd Skin-nerd, which is this week’s album of the week.  Let’s listen to my favorite song from the album, Gimme Three Steps.

Although there were many good songs on the album, the one that continues to be most closely associated with the group today is Free Bird.  Free Bird was a concert staple of the group and has to be listened to live to truly appreciate.  I can’t take you back in time to hear it live but I can provide you with this amazing concert performance of Free Bird by the original group as our Long Song Tuesday post.

To personalize this post let me tell you a story about the one and only time I was lucky enough to see Lynyrd Skynyrd.  It was the Summer of 1976 (Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama), the concert was an all day affair which unfortunately started late due to rain in the morning.  Lynyrd Skynyrd was the closing act and didn’t make it on stage until around 10:30.  Unknown to any of us at the concert, all concerts at Rickwood Field were required to end by 11:00 since it was located in a neighborhood.  The concert promoter came on stage at 11:00 and told the band they had to quit playing.  Much to their credit they ignored him and kept playing.  Things escalated and the promoter ended up turning off the power to the band’s amps midway through Free Bird.  The audience went apeshit and things quickly got out of hand.  it was one of those situations where you start to fear for your life.  As I was trying to get back to my car, the limo carrying the band was trying to drive through the crowd and ended up getting pelted with bottles and cans even though none of the situation was their fault.

Unfortunately, that was my one and only time seeing the group.  On one hand, I am grateful that I got the opportunity to see the band at all but on the other hand I am extremely  sad that I didn’t get to see a whole show.  As an epilogue, to this day I seldom go to a concert in the south without someone yelling out a request for Free Bird (regardless of who is playing).  Feelings run deep in the south and Skynyrd are legends!

So you can better appreciate the greatness of Lynyrd Skynyrd, please listen to the full Pronounced album.

In my humble opinion, nothing like them before, nothing like them since!  As always, let me know what you think.

The Southern California Sound (9) – Not The Way We Planned It

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 21, 2012
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When we last discussed Poco, they had just released their first album as a quartet having already fired Randy Meisner prior to the release of the album.  As the group moved forward, Timothy B Schmidt was added to replace Randy on bass.  This new configuration released Poco’s second studio album, Poco, and a live album, Deliverin.  The studio album, once again, had relatively low sales but the live album captured Poco’s live show energy  and became their first Top 40 album.

By late 1970, Jim Messina was starting to chafe at Richie Furray’s efforts to exert total control over the group sound and decided to leave the group and once again focus on being a producer.  You might recall that this had been his original role with Buffalo Springfield before he was invited to join them upon the departure of Bruce Palmer.  When Jim left Poco he was replaced by Paul Cotton who had previously been part of the duo known as Illinois Speed Press (we will definitely talk about that group in a future post).

Around the time that Jim was making his transition back to being a record producer, Columbia records was signing a new singer/songwriter named Kenny Loggins.  As fate would have it, Columbia assigned Jim to produce Kenny’s first album.  As work progressed on the album, Jim quickly became more than just a producer for the record.  He contributed songs, sang and played on the album.  It didn’t hurt that their voices sounded great together!  As a result of Jim’s significant role on the album, it was named Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina – Sittin In.  Soon after the release of the album, with encouragement from Clive Davis from Columbia Records, the two musicians decided to form a duo called Loggins and Messina.

As a duo, the group would go on to produce five more studio albums, achieving significant success throughout the 70’s before disbanding the group allowing Kenny to finally pursue his solo career.

While the duo produced a number of what I would consider to be overly commercial hit songs (Your Mama Don’t Dance is probably the best example) they also produced some excellent music that became a big part of the 1970’s California sound.  The following song is from their first album and is one of their best.

Before we end this post, here is a live version of my favorite Loggins and Messina song which was also on their first album.  Yeah I know it is pretty sappy but I still love it!  My wife and I saw Kenny in a solo concert a few years ago and he said that he wrote this song when he was sixteen years old.  Pretty impressive in my opinion!  (sorry about the ad!)

Look for the next post in the Southern California Sound series of posts in a week or so (The Southern California Sound (10) – Where Did They Come From).  I can almost guarantee that you have never heard of the group discussed in this post but you have definitely heard subsequent music that members of the group produced later in their careers.

International Songs – Post #1

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 20, 2012
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Osibisa – Criss-crossing rhythms that explode with happiness

As described on the Osibisa website, the band was formed in London in 1969.  Three of its members were from Ghana and three were from the Caribbean.  The group played a huge role in increasing awareness of African music.

I bought the first Osibisa album in college without ever hearing their music.  Why would I do such a thing?  I did it strictly based on the cover artwork which was absolutely striking.  Take a look for yourself.

To my surprise, I loved the Osibisa music as much as I loved the album cover  Let’s listen to Dawn, the first song from the album.

I hope you enjoyed their music as much as I did.  It truly does “explode with happiness”!

Response Songs #1

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on May 19, 2012
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Today’s post is the first in a new series that is titled Response Songs.  Response songs are ones that were written in response to another song.  To kickoff this new series we have Neil Young performing Sugar Mountain.  In the introduction to the song he mentions that Joni Mitchell wrote a song in response to Sugar Mountain.  Let’s listen to Neil…

Joni did indeed write her song The Circle Game after hearing Sugar Mountain.  Her is the story, in her own word, as provided by thrasherswheat.org (a website about Neil).

“In 1965 I was up in Canada, and there was a friend of mine up there who had just left a Rock’n’Roll band in Winnipeg/Manitoba near where I come from on the prairies to become a folk singer a la Bob Dylan, who was his hero at that time, and at the same time there were breaks in his life and he was going into new and exciting directions.

He had just newly turned 21, and that meant in Winnipeg he was no longer allowed into his favorite hangout which is kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you’re over 21 you couldn’t get in there anymore, so he was really feeling terrible because his girlfriends and everybody that he wanted to hang out with, his band could still go there, you know, but it’s one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn’t play in this club anymore. But he was over the hill.

So he wrote this song that was called “Oh to live on sugar mountain” which was a lament for his lost youth. And it went like this… [sings a few verses].

And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there’s nothing after that, that’s a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It’s called The Circle Game.”

Let’s listen to Joni singing the Circle Game……

Let me know if you like the premise behind this post.  Also, let me know if you know of other response songs that I can include in future posts.