Jimmy Page. You might not realize it but Jimmy was quite the session musician before the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. Although there is still some controversy about his role during the recording of the Who’s first album, I have done quite a bit of research (a Jimmy Page interview in a 1974 Creem magazine article and multiple websites including http://www.thewho.net and http://www.musicko.com) and am convinced of his role.
Jimmy was brought into the recording session for the Who’s first album by Shel Talmy who was producing the album because there was concern regarding Pete’s guitar skills. Looking back this was absurd but you need to realize that Pete was an unknown and Jimmy was already a legendary guitarist based on his session work.
Jimmy was scheduled to play lead on both I Can’t Explain and the b-side of that single which was called Bald Headed Woman. Unfortunately for Jimmy, I Can’t Explain required a Rickenbacker twelve string guitar and Jimmy didn’t own one. As it turns out, Pete did have one and there was no way Pete was going to hand it over to Jimmy to play on his record . Score one Pete who got to play the lead guitar part while Jimmy was relegated to rhythm.
Pete’s luck ran out during the recording of Bald Headed Woman which required a Fizz Box. According to John Entwistle, Jimmy owned the only Fuzz Box in the country at the time! Needless to say, Jimmy that got the lead part on Bald Headed Woman. Let’s listen. (sorry about the ad)
Let’s call it a draw overall ….and things didn’t turn out to badly for either Pete or Jimmy 🙂
This is the fourth 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 I Can’t Explain which was the Who’s first single released in late 1964. It’s a good one! Listen to the song and see if you can tell who was sitting in. (sorry about the ad)
The answer will be posted tomorrow along with some additional background information.
By the way….Gerard has beat everyone else to the punch by being the first person to identify the correct answers to all previous Who Is Sitting In posts. Step up to the plate and chime in with a comment if you think you know the answer! Maybe you can give Gerard some competition 🙂
Since I featured Hocus Pocus as our Long Song Tuesday post for this week, let continue the international flavor.
This is yet another album that I bought back in college without hearing any of the music in advance. This time, I bought the album based on the album title “Moroccan Roll” which I thought was a brilliant play on “More Rock and Roll”.
As I found out more about the group Les Variations I discovered that although they we considered to be a French group, three of their original four members were actually from Morocco so I think the title actually had a different meaning for them than it did for me 🙂 Let’s listen to the title song from the Moroccan Roll album (their first album on Buddah, an American record label).
I did not follow the band after my purchase of Moroccan Roll but enjoyed the title song as I hope you did as well. Let me know what you think.
I have been running late all day today so I am rushing to get this out while it is still Tuesday. Today’s long song is an amazing instrumental, Houcs Pocus, from the Dutch group Focus. Let’s listen… (sorry about the ad!)
The song is from the Focus album named Moving Waves which was released in 1971. I bought the album when it was originally released and still listen to it periodically. I definitely suggest you check out their catalog if you enjoyed Hocus Pocus!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
