40 Year Itch : A Moment's Answer To The Dream

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When I was writing "Close to the Edge" With Steve (Howe), I was reading a lot about spirituality and how it stretches across the entire world. There's a connection, like all rivers lead to the same ocean, so I thought, you know, "close to the edge, down by the river". And it's like people say "Close to the Edge" is about  disaster, but no , it's about realization! We're on this journey and the only reason we live is to find the divine. To find God from within 

   -Jon Anderson

interviewed by Sea Of Tranquility

   As previously stated just this week,  there was a time when people would set the needle down and really listen to side long symphonic rock tracks like "Close to the Edge" . To me it  sounds for the first few minutes like every idea these stellar musicians ever had got tossed into a blender. Ah! But that's just one half of one movement. Things get funky, then ethereal, then churchy and then the whole thing drives down the autobahn in a tank before crashing into a tree full of birds.

    "For You And I" is lovely. The second of its four movements, "Eclipse" was released as a single in the US and just missed cracking the Top 40. Finally there's 9 minutes of the vigorous "Siberian Khatru". I listen in awe to the bass lines of Chris Squire. ( But sometimes I get the feeling that's the whole point of Yes: "Be in awe of  us!").

This would be the last album to feature Bruford who quit Yes to join King Crimson just days before a US tour. Enter Alan White to the rescue ( see interview) who had to learn how to play these oddly tempo'd tunes. Yes would spend years trying to top Close To The Edge. The band has their moments but this, The Yes Album and Fragile are still the highlights in my opinion.

40 Year Itch: Long Live Rock 1972 ( Part 2)

                                                  DONNY HATHAWAY LIVE

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No it's not rock but this 1972 soul release from Donny Hathaway is my favorite live album of 1972.    Recorded live at The Troubador in Hollywood and at the Bitter End in New York, Hathaway and his band ( which includes bassist Willie Weeks) find the groove every single time and on tracks from Hathaway's 1970 solo debut, Everything Is Everything, stretch out. "The Ghetto" runs more than 12 minutes. "Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)" runs nearly 14 minutes...including a remarkably funky three minute bass solo from Weeks. In the blogosphere , it's Hathaway's version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" that has turned audiences onto Donny Hathway Live but the entire album is great.


 
                                             
THE SHOCKING BLUE LIVE IN JAPAN


At the height of their popularity the Dutch band Shocking Blue were knocking out three albums a year as well as touring the world. Live In Japan finds the band doing a pretty decent job of overcoming sleep deprivation and jet lag. As fans will already know "Hot Sand" was the B-Side to "Venus" which, for some reason, gets played twice on the album. Good stuff but Attila, released in November of 1972,  would contain a most amazing single: "Rock In The Sea".

 

                                                            SLADE ALIVE!


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Though packed with cover versions from the likes of Lovin' Spoonful, Ten Years After and Steppenwolf, Slade's live album Alive! sold big numbers peaking at #1 in Australia and #2 in the UK. The album rocks all the way through and is meant to be played loudly and often. Plus there is a true "punk rock" moment halfway through "Darling Be Home Soon" when singer Noddy Holder belches into the microphone. You put something like that on a record and teenage boys will help launch your career into the stratosphere! The 2006 version has 33 tracks.


 

                                             THE BAND ROCK OF AGES

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On the last four nights of 1971, The Band booked the Academy of Music in NYC and played their ever loving asses off with a horn section arranged by New Orleans maestro Allen Toussaint. The result is a classic album that had only gotten better with age...in part because we keep getting more music. The most recent incarnation of Rock of Ages is two CDs , 45 minutes longer than the original two disc set, including four songs with Bob Dylan. So sometimes the horns are overbearing. This is still a better live document of The Band at its best than The Last Waltz.


 

Yeah, we'll deal with Full House, Made In Japan and a few others in the weeks and months to come.

40 Year Itch Long Live Rock 1972 ( Part 1 )

In this era of 140 character Twitter messages, on-demand television and internet porn, it may be hard to believe people used to sit back in chairs, pop a beer can and listen to an entire albums filled with nothing but long-haired musicians jamming live to appreciative crowds. The live "Head Album", so called because in addition to beer you'd probably be feeding your head, probably peaked in 1972.

Here are few notable examples.

                            COSMIC TRAVELERS LIVE AT THE SPRING CRATER FESTIVAL

 Recorded by former Paul Revere and the Raiders guitarist Drake Levin ( who also played on Ananka Shankar's trippy 1970 eponymous album and with Emitt Rhodes)and LA session musicians before a crowd of 55,000, this acid rock ult fave was limited to 1000 copies in 1972. The Gear Fab label is releasing the album on CD in February of 2013. Listen to the entire album below. Turn on the lava lamp and listen to the entire album below.

 

                                     CARLOS SANTANA AND BUDDY MILES!LIVE!


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 Clearly Carlos Santana is doing Buddy Miles a "solid" by appearing on this one time live album recorded in Hawaii. It sold a million copies and even went Top Ten. the album starts off promisingly enough with a cover of John Mclaughlin's "Marbles" and Buddy's "Lava". Then comes a version of "Evil Ways" that starts off groovy before jazz saxophonist Hadley Caliman begins blowing weird atonal notes halfway in. There's also a sidelong jam called "Free Form Funkafide Filth" that goes nowhere and then , 17 minutes in, has the musical balls to pull of a "false ending" before going for seven minutes more. Can't imagine listening to this one all the way through more than once.

 

FRUMPY LIVE

[Purchase a used copy for $389]

Popular German prog rockers Frumpy, led by the mesmerizing vocalist Inga Rumpf, recorded a double live album of soulful hard rock with some of the best organ playing this side of Deep Purple. Unfortunately Frumpy Live came out after the band had broken up. After the break-up three members of the band, including Inga,  formed Atlantis which eventually supported both Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd on tour. Despite limited US success, Inga is still gigging around German. Heil Inga!

 

                                            JOHN MAYALL JAZZ BLUES FUSION


[Purchase for $5.99]

Well, Dean of all Rock Critics Robert Christgau wasn't impressed. "Old blues guys plus old jazz guys? I always though fusion was something new" he wrote in his C- review. No, it's not really something new. But Brit John Mayall cooks on his harmonica and interweaves solos with Stanley Turrentine's favorite trumpeter Blue Mitchell and sax player Clifford Solomon while Freddy Robinson lays clean jazz-blues lines. No wonder for some Mayall fans, this one stands out as the favorite.


 

TOMORROW: Live albums from rock and soul acts like Donny Hathaway, Slade, The Band  and Shocking Blue

40 Year Itch: Surrender To The Rhythm

[Purchase as a double CD with New Favourites]

It's refreshing to know that as the 1970's introduced an era of side-long progressive rock symphonies and  self pitying singer songwriters, there were still bands that just wanted to make feel good three minute rock'n'roll songs about girls, girlfriends and ex girlfriends. In the UK, Brinsley Schwarz was arguably the best of the pub rockers. Led by Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwarz, the band's second 1972 studio album Nervous On The Road didn't make much of an impact on the charts but its 40 minutes of country-flavored rock earned the band a UK tour opening for Paul McCartney and Wings.

After a sixth album that would be produced by Dave Edmunds and feature "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love And Understanding", the members of Brinsley Schwarz would play a big role in the New Wave movement. Nick Lowe scored some solo hits ("I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass", "Cruel To Be Kind") and produced Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and The Damned among others. Ian Gomm hit the Top 20 in 1979 with "Hold On". Brinsley Schwarz and Bob Andrews joined former Brinsley Schwarz roadie Martin Belmont and  recorded as The Rumour with and without Graham Parker.

All Time Top 10: David Jaymes of Modern Romance

New romantic pin up popsters Modern Romance scored their biggest selling single with "Best Years Of Our Lives" which was released shortly after bass guitarist Jaymes gave this list to Smash Hits Magazine. The list comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened.

40 Year Itch All The Young Dudes

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Mott The Hoople had practically thrown in the towel for reasons previously discussed when bassist Pete Overend got a call from David Bowie offering Mott  "Suffragette City". Hours after Overend idiotically declined, Bowie called back with a new song he had written, a glam rock anthem that would revive Mott.  The single "All The Young Dudes" was released in July of 1972 and  peaked at #3 in the UK and #37 in the US.

On September 8, 1972 the Bowie produced album All The Young Dudes, one of my favorite albums of all time, was released. I knew nothing of Bowie swooping in to save the band. I just heard greatness.I found a cassette copy of the album in a Reno pawn shop. There was no case. No cover. I made my own cover using the bubblegum card photo of Elvis sailing.

Well, it is better than the album cover Mott used.And surprisingly, not that different from the originally planned cover photo -shot by Mick Rock. It might have been one of the seminal rock n roll photos of all time had it been used. No one from Mick to Ian Hunter can remember why it wasn't.

All The Young Dudes has one of the greatest A sides in rock history. It's also extremely sexual with sadists, evil mothers, schoolgirls in need of "reincelibation", a black man's balls and a singer who's been wanting to do "this" for years.

    It kicks off with a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" written by Lou Reed who was also in the process of getting a make-over from Bowie. The result would be Transformer and  the single "Walk On The Wild Side".



Love the second cut, "Momma's Little Jewel", with its false beginning ( that's Bowie supposedly saying "Don't stop ...No...Carry on" and playing the dissonant sax at the end) and made up word: "Don't know why but I'm gonna try/ to reincelibate you ".



That's followed by the glorious title track and then another favorite of mine, "Sucker" , with its opening line " Hi there, your friendly neighborhood sadist want to take you for a ride".



The great "A" side ends with "Jerkin' Crocus", the Sticky Fingered tale of an aggressive "nads puller". There's the oft quoted line "I know what you want, just a lick from an ice cream cone." Jesus the riffs on this one!



It's a shame Side Two can't keep up the momentum. It's probably mostly noted for the single "One Of The Boys" and the first appearance of "Ready For Love" which Mick Ralphs would take with him when he joined Bad Company after 1973's classic Mott. Yes, a lot of fans say the best was yet to come for Mott The Hoople but All The Young Dudes will always be my favorite.

40 Year Itch: Give It Up

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For more than 40 years Bonnie Raitt has been making soulful blues albums. Most people know the nine-time Grammy winner from her 1989 album Nick Of Time, which sold five million copies thanks to heavy airplay for singles like "Nick Of Time", "Have A Heart" and "Thing Called Love".

But where do you go from there?

Well, rock critics and longtime fans have made a strong argument for Bonnie's second album, Give It Up, released in September of 1972.

The album cover gives absolutely no indication of what's inside. (I doubt any other major recording artist has ever had such a string of awful album covers).

Just 22 years old, Bonnie and her fellow musicians confidently play bar band blues ("Give It Up Or Let It Go"), New Orleans-style blues ("You Got To Know How") , West Coast folk (the Jackson Browne cover "Under The Falling Sky") , some stunning originals and finally, if you haven't yet been convinced, a heart-shattering cover of Eric Kaz's "Love Has No Pride".




Here's the album you need for that Indian Summer, golden hour backyard bar-b-que. There are great pleasures to be found in every cut. While "Love Has No Pride" may be the obvious track to highlight, I'm calling an audible and offering up Bonnie's funky "You Told Me Baby" which contains everything we loved about California pop back then. I could listen to this one all day.