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.
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.
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”!
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.
Check out the new song from Linkin Park’s new album Living Things that is scheduled to be released on 26 June 2012.
I like what they have done with their sound. How about you?
If you are interested in more, here are a couple of live performances of my favorite Linkin Park songs. I particularly liked the acoustic performance of Breaking the Habit!
So…as promised, here are a couple of examples of Neil’s impact on the ability of CSN to rock during live performances. Let’s start with one of Neil’s classic songs, Down By The River as performed by CSNY at the Big Sur festival in 1969.
Stephen wanted CSN to rock and I think we can agree that with the addition of Neil that goal was accomplished. Stephen and Neil’s dueling guitars were magic in Buffalo Springfield and they are just as much as so in CSNY.
As a child of the 60’s I have to admit that I have to giggle a little watching these clips from the Big Sur festival. Now that I am looking old age in the face, it all seems a little silly but if I had a time machine and could go back to that time I would do it without a second thought.
This second clip from the Big Sur festival is a mixture of Neil Young inspired CSNY rock, some true 60’s absurdity, and a beautiful acoustic performance by Stephen. Enjoy…
This wraps up the Plus One posts. Be looking for the next post in this series (The Southern California Sound (9) – Not The Way We Planned It) in the coming week
I want to admit upfront that prior to the release of American Idiot I was never a Green Day fan. Having gotten that off my chest, I was totally blown away by American Idiot which is the closest thing to a perfect album that we have seen in many years. In my humble opinion it is easily the best album so far in the 2000’s.
The album’s theme had a lot of meaning when it was initially released in the middle of the Bush years and all of those feelings are coming back to me as I contemplate a potential win by Mitt Romney in this year’s US Presidential election. Let’s listen to a couple of my favorite song from the album.
American Idiot (sorry about the ad!)
Give Me Novacaine
As great as these two songs are, you really cannot appreciate how good the album is without listening to it end to end. So….here it is in all it’s glory for your enjoyment. As you listen to the two embedded rock operas in this gem of an album, I think you will agree with me about how good this album is.
Still not had enough Green Day??? Me neither…here is a live version of Wake Me Up When September Ends.
Today’s long song is from Kraftwerk, the electronic music pioneers from Dusseldorf, Germany. Autobahn, released in 1974, was their fourth album. The title track from that album is today’s offering. Let’s listen…you might as well sit back and relax, this is going to take a while. Twenty two minutes to be exact.
I was quite taken by this song, and by the album, when it was first released. I can still remember listening to Autobahn over and over and over again on the cassette player in my car on a four hour trip to Montgomery, Alabama in 1974. Fun, fun, fun on the Autobahn indeed!
Influential is an over used word these days but I think we can feel comfortable in saying that Kraftwerk merits the use of that word. I firmly believe that many of today’s groups would not exist today if Kraftwerk had not laid the electronic music groundwork to prepare the way. School of Seven Bells (featured in a New Music That Doesn’t Suck post last week) is one example of such a group.
When we last discussed Crosby, Stills, and Nash the group’s self titled album had just been released to critical acclaim. You might also remember that it was Stephen that played most of the instruments during the recording of the album…they were a group but not a real band. We hinted in that post that this would become a significant issue once they decided to tour and so it was. Dallas Taylor had been brought in as drummer for the Crosby, Stills, and Nash album but they needed more…here is an excerpt from Shakey (a Neil Young Biograph by Jimmy McDonough) that picks up the story with Stephen and Dallas on the way to talk to Neil after a Crazy Horse concert. (By the way, if you are a Neil Young fan at all you really to buy Shakey and read it!)
“I’ll never forget our ride in the limo on the way to see Neil,” said Dallas Taylor, recalling a 1969 Crazy Horse gig on Long Island they were crashing. “Stephen said, ‘How would you feel about Neil joining the band?’ ‘Wow great – except isn’t that why the Springfield broke up?’ He said, ‘Oh, no, man- it’s going to be different this time. It’ll be cool .’ But there was this tone of doubt in his voice.”
With their debut album topin the charts, Crosby, Stills, and Nash were faced with the necessity of performing live – a bit of a problem, since so much of the record had been overdubbed by one-man-band Stills. Crosby and Nash wanted to keep the live presentation acoustic, but Stills had a fatal desire to hear the trio rock. Many possible musicians had been discussed and even approached before Ahmet Ertegun, at a dinner with Stills and David Geffen, suggested the obvious choice: Neil Young.
At first Neil Young was wanted only as a sideman. Ever the master manipulator, Elliot Roberts laid down the law: full partnership, equal songs. “He’d have to be a Y,” Roberts demanded. Graham Nash balked. “We’d spent a lotta time getting this beautiful harmonic sound together. I mean, Jesus Christ, wasn’t the album a huge multiplatinum success? I didn’t feel like we needed anybody else.”
Nash had never spent time around the reclusive Young, so the pair met to discuss matters over breakfast in New York City at Bleecker Street Cafe, near where the group was already in rehearsal. Young charmed Nash instantly. “Neil absolutely won me over. I came out of that breakfast two eggs over easy.”
This put Neil Young in an amazing position: He could reap the hype benefits of a smash album he didn’t even play on and in the process expose a gigantic audience to his own music. “CSNY was definitely not hurting Neil,” said Roberts. “Neil never had a downside to any of this, never. It could only help us. What we were asked to do is take something soft and give it balls….Neil’s got balls dripping from his shoulders, there’s balls in his hair, there’s balls comin down his back – he’s got balls everywhere.”
Young was definitely the guy with the balls. He gutted one band – the Rockets – to create his own, then walked into a super group with full membership status and continued to work with Crazy Horse. “Neil made it clear that CSN was not his first priority,” said Roberts. “The work was the priority, So the seeds of discontent were always there.”
Once Young was in the group, his power continued to swell. “As soon as they started to rehearse, it was clear Neil was gonna be in charge,” said Roberts. “Everyone was afraid of Neil. Because Neil walked. When Neil said, ‘Fuck you, I’m leaving,’ Neil left. Everyone else goes, ‘Fuck you, I’m leaving,’ and then they to the bathroom, roll a joint and come back. But when Neil said anything, he did it. He really did back out of Monterey. And this was terrifying to these guys because they were full of that – every other thing was ‘I’m not playing, I’m not showing.” Like little kids. Neil wasn’t into that. It was serious business.
You may not realize it but we have already seen an instance Neil’s power. In an earlier post I provided you with a video of Crosby, Stills, and Nash performing at Woodstock. In reality CSNY was at Woodstock, not just CSN but you would never know it unless you were there in person. None of the Woodstock movies or albums provided any indication that Neil was there because he refused to allow himself to be included!
The CSNY band was completed with the addition of Greg Reeves on bass and the recording of the first CSNY album, Déjà vu, was initiated.
Let’s listen to a contribution to the album from each of the four members of the group.
David Crosby – Déjà vu
Stephen Stills – Carry On
Graham Nash – Our House
Neil Young – Helpless (alternate mix)
I have to say that I like the Déjà vu album, but I also need to say that it did not achieve Stephen’s goal of having the group rock! The Rolling Stone review from April 1970 echoes my opinion:
“Along with many other people, I had hoped that the addition of Neil Young to Crosby, Stills, and Nash would give their music the guts and substance which the first album lacked. Live performance of the group suggested this had happened. Young’s voice, guitar, compositions, and stage presence added elements of darkness and mystery to songs which had previously dripped a kind of saccharine sweetness. Unfortunately, little of this influence carried over to the recording session for Déjà vu.”
Later this week, in a Part 2 of this post, we will listen to some examples of the group in concert at the Big Sur Festival in 1969 to appreciate Neil’s additions to the group’s live performances.
For now let’s wrap it up Part 1 of this post by noting that CSNY continue through today to break apart, and come together, at the whim of Neil. Déjà vu, in my opinion, was the artistic zenith for the group.
When Neil, has not been interested, CSN has continued to be very successful at times, although David Crosby’s drug problems in the 70s and 80s created some significant issues for the group. Crosby, Stills, and Nash have also all had successful solo careers and successful side projects. We will check in on some of these side projects in subsequent posts in this series.
Yesterday we had our 1,000th visitor to the blog. I truly appreciate everyone that reads the blog and will continue to work hard to provide you with posts that will make you want to keep coming back.
As we move forward please help by spreading the word to your friends and co-workers that enjoy music. Thanks again to everyone and here is your bonus post!
As you will remember, when we talked about Poco Randy Meisner was kicked out the band before the first Poco album was released. Randy landed on his feet and became part of Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. This historic video highlights a couple of Ricky Nelson songs from around 1970, with Randy in the band.
We will hear a lot more about Randy in later posts in The California Sound series.
