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Today in Rock History – April 27

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beatles-studio-19661966, The Beatles began recording the new John Lennon song “I’m Only Sleeping” at Abbey Road studios London, England. Recording began at 11:30 PM. The band recorded 13 takes, concluding on May 6th. The song features the then-unique sound of a reversed guitar duet played by George Harrison, partly because the tape was played backwards accidentally.  Paul McCartney wanted to see if the band could recreate the sound. George recorded two guitar parts specifically for that purpose. It was released on the album Yesterday And Today.

1968, Simon & Garfunkel release “Mrs. Robinson” from The Graduate soundtrack.

1969, Joe Cocker makes his debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1969, The Who performed at the Kinema Ballroom, Dunfermline, England.

1969, Pink Floyd appeared at Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, England. Radio 1 DJ John Peel served as the emcee,  He wrote in his weekly column for Disc & Music Echo, “At one moment they are laying surfaces of sound one upon another in symphonic thunder; at another isolated, incredibly melancholy sounds which cross another sounding like dying galaxies lost in sheer corridors of time and space.”

1970, David Bowie and The Hype, Barclay James Harvest, High Tide and The Purple Gang all appeared at Stockport Grammar School, England.

1971, The Grateful Dead performed at the Fillmore East in New York City. The Beach Boys also appeared on stage with the Dead, who together performed a short set of Beach Boys songs.

1972, Pink Floyd appeared at Ford Auditorium, Detroit, Michigan.

1973, King Crimson played at Irvine Auditorium, Philadelphia.

1974, A free afternoon event was held in the parking lot of the University of Connecticut, Ice Hockey Arena in Storrs. The four acts that appeared, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Fairport Convention, and Fat Back. Springsteen then went on to play another gig that evening at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

1974, Genesis appeared at the Century Theatre, Buffalo, New York.

pink-floyd-19751975, Pink Floyd played the last of a four night run at Los Angeles’ Sports Arena. A total of 511 fans were arrested over the four nights for possession of marijuana.

1976, Customs officers on a train at the Russian/Polish Border detained David Bowie, after Nazi books and mementos were found in his luggage. Bowie claimed that the material was being used for research on a movie project about Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Paul Goebbels.

1977, Eric Clapton performed at the Hammersmith Odeon, London.

1978, David Bowie appeared at the Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland.

1979, Roxy Music played at the Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan.

1980, Rush performed at Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana.

1981, Ringo Starr married actress and one time “Bond Girl” Barbara Bach. The pair met while filming the movie, Caveman, with Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long. In attendance at the wedding were George Harrison and Paul McCartney.

1985, USA For Africa started a three-week run at number one on the US chart with “We Are The World.” The US artists’ answer to Band Aid had an all-star cast including Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Kim Carnes, Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon plus the composer’s of the track, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie.

1996, Oasis played the first of two nights at Manchester’s Maine Road football ground as a ‘thank you’ to their fans, the 80,000 tickets sold out in hours.

2003, Madonna went to number one on the UK album chart with American Life, the Material Girl’s eighth chart topping album. It also reached the top spot on the US album charts.

2009, Aerosmith were to hold a free concert in Hawaii to placate angry fans who brought a legal case against them. Fans filed a class action case, which claimed the band had cancelled a sold-out show in Maui two years ago, leaving hundreds of fans out of pocket in favor of a bigger gig in Chicago. Lawyers for the would-be concert-goers said Aerosmith had now agreed to put on a new show, and would pay all expenses. Everyone who bought a ticket to the original concert would receive a free ticket.

Born on April 27: Casey Kasem (1932) Jerry Mercer, drummer, Mashmakhan, April Wine (1939); Jim Keltner, drummer, Traveling Wilburys, Plastic Ono Band, and Delaney & Bonnie and Friends (1939); Gordon Haskell, King Crimson (1947); Pete Ham, Badfinger (1947); Kate Pierson, The B-52’s (1948); Ace Frehley, Kiss (1951); Sheena Easton (1959); Will Boyd, bass, Evanescence, American Princes, and The Visitors (1979)

Link to Today in Rock History main page

Song Of The Day– “Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy” by Chick Corea and Return To Forever

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return-to-forever-hymn-seventh-galaxyPianist extraordinaire, Chick Corea, got his professional start playing with the likes of Cab Calloway, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, Willie Bobo and Mongo Santamaria. He went on to replace Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’ band, and played with him from 1968 through 1971 during a crucial time when Miles was moving away from straight-ahead jazz, and toward a more psychedelic rock sound. He appeared on Davis’ seminal albums Filles de Kilimanjaro, In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Black Beauty and Miles Davis At Fillmore.

After leaving Miles’ ranks with Dave Holland, he formed the group Circle with Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul before forming Return To Forever in 1971. The first two Return To Forever albums featured husband and wife Flora Purim on vocals and Airto Moreira on percussion, plus Joe Farrell on flute and soprano sax and Stanley Clark on bass. This group released their self-titled debut album, and 1973’s Light As A Feather. Both albums had a Latin-tinged ethereal sound, highlighted by Purim’s distant vocal style.

For Chick Corea’s second album of 1973, Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and Joe Farrell were out, and Lenny White (drums) and Bill Connors (guitar) joined Corea (synthesizer, piano) and Stanley Clarke (bass) for an all-instrumental collection that pushed the boundaries of jazz by adding more rock instrumentation to the mix.

The album was recorded twice. The first version featured Steve Gadd on drums who didn’t want to tour with the group, so the complete album was cut again with Lenny White on drums. The unreleased tapes of the Gadd version have been lost to the ages.

Hymn refined Miles Davis’ blueprint for jazz rock by moving it more into the mainstream with electric instrumentation and the sounds of funk, psychedelia, Latin jazz and instrumental prog rock, highlighted by the interplay between Corea and guitarist Bill Connors.

Today’s Song Of the Day is the album’s title track which has become a cornerstone of Corea’s repertoire. The album also features Corea’s “Captain Señor Mouse,” “The Game Maker,” “Theme To The Mothership” and Stanley Clarke’s “After The Cosmic Rain.”

After this album, Al DiMeola would replace Bill Connors and Return To Forever would release best-selling records throughout the 1970s like Where Have I Known You Before, No Mystery, Romantic Warrior and Musicmagic.

Song Of The Day – “Punk Prayer” by Pussy Riot

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pussyriot1PussyRiot2Pussy Riot – what they lack in musical aptitude, they surely make up with unbridled punk rock spirit. The merits of their talent or lack thereof, are totally beside the point anyway. Pussy Riot return punk rock to its purest essence: protest, entertainment and fashion.

Pussy Riot formed in Moscow in 2011 with an ever-changing lineup of young women numbering up to twenty different members. In essence, Pussy Riot is more movement than musical outfit, and the aforementioned style comes down to the brightly colored balaclavas they wear during performance to obscure their real identities.

Pussy Riot’s brand of entertainment is known as guerilla performance, where the group members show up to perform in places specifically chosen to create outrage, in order to gain media attention and make a statement. Today’s Song Of The Day, “Punk Prayer,” is the performance that landed three Pussy Riot members in jail for the punk protest they staged in Moscow’s very conservative Cathedral Of Christ The Savior on February 12, 2012. The video mixes raw footage of the actual protest with their studio recording called “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!”

The performance and publicity that followed didn’t play well in Putin’s Russia and landed two of the group members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, in jail in March of 2012, charged with the crime of hooliganism. A third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was also arrested several days later in March. The young women were denied bail and held in custody until their trial began in late July.

Pussy Riot said their protest was a political statement, but prosecutors argued that the band was trying to “incite religious hatred” against the Orthodox Church. On August 17, 2012, the three members were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and each was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

Samutsevich was released from prison a few months later (in October of 2012) after her lawyer successfully argued that she didn’t actually participate in the demonstration because security did not permit her to enter the church. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova remain in prison where they have been met with a fair amount of disdain by the prison population. (Two other Pussy Riot members managed to escape prosecution and left the country.)

Russian political rights activists see Pussy Riot’s imprisonment as politically motivated, and sentiment within Russia, and indeed the rest of the world, has been met with equal amounts of disdain for Putin’s Russia.

While in jail, members of Pussy Riot continue to stage guerilla performances and  most recently released a video called Like A Red Prison (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOM_3QH3bBw) filmed at a Russian oil refinery, although both Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have denied that the video was an official Pussy Riot performance.

For more information on Pussy Riot, check out the excellent HBO documentary Pussy Riot; A Punk Prayer, directed by Mike Lerner and Maksim Pozdorovkin, or go to http://freepussyriot.org/about on line.

Song Of The Day – “Was All Talk” by Kurt Vile

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kurtvilewakinSong Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Was All Talk” by Kurt Vile

I posted this piece several months ago when Kurt Vile’s latest album Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze was first released. I’m still listening to this record today, and have come to the conclusion that it is one of the year’s very best records. In case you missed it the first time around, I figured I’d change the song and rerun the piece again. (I’ll have something fresh and new for tomorrow to post.)

Kurt Vile’s lo-fi bedroom records from the past have given way to a more produced sound on his latest record called Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze.  While some of the edges have been smoothed out production-wise, the songwriting is as sharp as ever on his most assured collection yet, as he comes to terms with balancing life on the road and raising a family at home.

Vile is married and has two young children and more than on any of his previous albums, the overriding theme of homesickness pops up time and time again. Both “Pure Pain” – “well I want to be with you (when can I?) / I don’t know, well I’m workin’” and “Snowflakes Are Dancing” – “when I’m away out there/ I wanna go home/ when I am home/ my head stays out there,” touch on dealing with the rootless experience of touring versus the stability of family and home.

On the song “Too Hard,” Vile proclaims “I will promise not to smoke too much and/ I will promise not to party too hard” as a pledge of responsibility while away, then a few songs later on “Shame Chamber” he seems to do an about face; “It’s just another day / in the shame chamber / livin’ life to the lowest power / feelin’ bad, in the best way a man can.”

The album opens with a snoozy wake-up call “Waking On A Pretty Day.” There’s no rush in getting things going over this song’s nearly ten minute duration, while crystalline guitar work bolsters come-what-may lyrics like “I gotta think about what wisecracks/ I’m gonna drop along the way today.” And just when you begin to settle into the relaxed pace of the track, Vile jars us into reality with an appropriated riff from Deep Purple’s “Woman From Tokyo,” announcing one of the album’s few rockers “KV Crimes.”

Vile is an artist that gets put into the “low-fi” stoner bag due to his oh, so groovy long-haired appearance, and the fuzzy dreamscapes and mumbled vocals that dominate his recordings. But this record has real production value courtesy of John Agnello who also produced Vile’s last platter. So while he may not be able to fully shake the stoner label sonically, he does come right out and address the issue on the album’s pastoral sun-soaked ten minute closer “Goldtone”  –  “Sometimes when I get in my zone / you’d think I was stoned / but I never as they say ‘touch that stuff… I might be adrift but I’m still alert/ Concentrate my hurt into a gold tone.”

Vile’s band, The Violators is now down to a trio consisting of multi-instrumentalists Jesse Trbovich and Rob Laakso, due to the amicable departure of Vile’s longtime War On Drugs collaborator Adam Granduciel. They will be joined by drummer Vince Nudo and guitarist Steve Gunn on their upcoming tour in May.

Today’s Song Of The Day, “Was All Talk” reminds me of Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer,” in the best way possible.

Song Of The Day – “Tried And True” by Ween

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weencaesarweenquebecI first heard the music of Ween while watching “Beavis & Butthead” back in 1994…they said “Ween suck”…and I totally disagreed! In fact, I think they are one of the greatest bands of all time, and when it comes to adeptness in all genres of music, they are certainly in a league with Frank Zappa.

Ween hail from New Hope, PA and have been together since 1984. They spent their early days playing any venue they could, including dorm rooms at Rutgers University. (I once saw them play in a small bookstore at Rutgers with 70 other fans.) Dean Ween (aka “Deaner” or Mickey Melchiondo) is a shredding guitarist, a complete angler and a sea captain.  Geen Ween (aka Aaron Freeman) possesses one of the most pliant voices in all of rock music and is the vocalist of the group.

After a layoff of a three years and a jump from Elektra Records to the independent Sanctuary label, Ween released their ninth album, Quebec in 2003. Seeing the Quebec tour at the Vic Theater in Chicago (which was filmed for their Ween Live In Chicago DVD), I came to the conclusion that the new audiences that were attracted to the band didn’t seem to be in on the joke of some of their more masochistic song lyrics, taking songs that original fans laughed at very seriously. This tarnished the way I perceived the Quebec album, which is a shame because it really is one of their best and most diverse collections.

Recently, I came across a two-CD download released by Mickey Melchiondo on his Facebook page called The Caesar” Demos. Caesar was the original title for Quebec, and the demos were recorded while drummer Claude Coleman was recuperating after his near fatal car accident in 2002. Many of the demos feature just Mickey and Aaron without backing musicians just like they were at the beginning of their career when they were making their bedroom recordings.

While the demos include alternates of most of the 16 tracks that made the final cut of the album, there are an additional 13 songs that will be new to most Ween fans. Whether in demo form or in their final studio incarnation, songs like “Transdermal Celebration,” “Captain,” “Zoloft,” “Chocolate Town,” “So Many People In The Neighborhood,” “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)” and today’s Song Of The Day, are amongst Ween’s finest songs. The version of “Tried And True” for Today’s Song Of The Day is the demo version from The Caesar Demos, and to my ears, is far superior to the final version on Quebec.

Now that Ween have sadly called it quits, let’s hope that there are more unreleased recordings in store for fans in the future.

Song Of The Day – “Aquarium” by Van Dyke Parks

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vandykeparksVan Dyke Parks has essentially been making the same album since 1968, and fortunately for his fans, that album is a great one. Parks’ fascination with Tin Pan Alley sounds and Depression-Era songwriting has infused his work since the mid-1960s, resulting in albums that sound like original cast recordings from musicals that don’t exist.

Over the last two years, Parks self-released a series of six 7” singles on his own label. His brand new album, Songs Cycled compiles all of the singles. While the sticker on the outside of the album claims that Songs Cycled is his first “proper solo” album in 24 years, it’s all a matter of record company promotional semantics since his last album of all-new original material was Orange Crate Art, a collaboration with Brian Wilson that was released in 1995.

The album’s title references Parks’ debut album for Warner Bros back in 1968 called Song Cycle, and many of the musical themes in his debut album are revisited here. In the promotional interviews for the new album, Parks has said that due to the high costs associated with releasing records today; this could well be his last album. If that is indeed the case, the music contained within Songs Cycled brings his storied career full circle.

Parks is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, and especially for his lyrical contributions to their ill-fated Smile project. He has also worked with such notable performers as Phil Ochs, The Byrds, Little Feat, Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention, Three Dog Night, Tim Buckley, Loudon Wainwright III, Rufus Wainwright, Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, Victoria Williams, Joanna Newsom, U2, Grizzly Bear, Silverchair and Rufus Wainwright.

Part of his “Zelig-like” charm comes down to being at the right place at the right time. For instance, Parks sessioned on The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension album, after which David Crosby asked him to join the band. He was also later offered membership in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, however, he declined both offers.

When Parks first met Brian Wilson, he was asked to write new lyrics to “Good Vibrations” because Wilson was dissatisfied with Tony Asher’s lyrics. Parks declined, stating that he didn’t’ think he could improve on Asher’s lyrics. However, it was Parks idea to have the cellos play the eighth notes in the track.

It was through his involvement with “Good Vibrations” that Wilson asked Parks to write lyrics for the Smile album that was recorded in 1966, but did not get a proper release until 2012. In preparation for the writing and recording of the album, Wilson purchased several thousand dollars’ worth of marijuana and hash for him and his friends (including Parks) to consume.

Parks worked on numerous sessions for Warner Bros. and Reprise Records artists throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the mid-1960s, he pitched a song composed by his brother Carson to Frank Sinatra. Sinatra recorded the song with his daughter Nancy, resulting in the chart-topping single “Somethin’ Stupid.” Parks also directed, arranged, produced and composed soundtracks for a many theatrical films, TV commercials and television shows.

Today’s Song of the Day is one of two tracks on Songs Cycled that are re-recordings of previously written material from Parks’ other albums. “Aquarium” is an instrumental recording made with The Esso Trinidad Steel Band composed originally by the French classical composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The track originally appeared on the 1971 album Van Dyke Parks Presents The Esso Trinidad Steel Band which was produced by Van Dyke Parks.

The Esso Trinidad Steel Band had been performing with Liberace in Las Vegas when Van Dyke Parks heard them. According to Parks, “I saw them as enslaved in their relationship to Liberace; I thought it was a vulgarity. I wanted to save them from their trivialization.”

Of Songs Cycled Parks said, “I think it is safe to say that my work can be branded Americana, but I think it’s also safe to say it can be branded ‘anti-Americana’ and ‘an inconvenient truth’ as well.…There is very little ‘divergent music’ made in America. I go to ‘worldbeat’ to get out of the box. I think those influences show in my perspective.”

To that end, the album features several songs tied to historical events including “Wall Street” which was written in response to the September 11th attacks on the U.S., and “Money Is King” which deals with the post-9/11 corporate greed in America. The song “Dreaming Of Paris” deals with the American bombing of Baghdad and “Missin’ Missippi” was written about Hurricane Katrina.

The most overtly Broadway-esque track on the album is a cover of Billy Edd Wheeler’s “Sassafrass,” which Parks calls “outlaw chamber music,” and the album’s centerpiece, “The Parting Hand” comes from The Sacred Harp Society’s Hymnal of 1835. The track begins as a straight-up acapella hymn and is followed by a long, ornate orchestral coda.

Songs Cycled is everything you’d want from a Van Dyke Parks album, Copland-esque Americana, fussy orchestral arrangements and songs that bring you into another world…a world that today is only inhabited by Parks himself. At 70 years old, Parks keeps pushing the envelope forward and has worked in recent years with Silverchair, Joanna Newsome, Grizzly Bear and Skrillex.

Here’s the whole album:

Song Of The Day – “The First Girl I Loved” by Incredible String Band/”The First Boy I Loved” by Judy Collins

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incrediblestringbandd5000I first came into contact with this wistful song via Judy Collin’s version on her Who Knows Where The Time Goes album where it was called “The First Boy I Loved.” It makes sense that she would’ve covered this song as they were both label mates at Elektra Records.

It literally took me years to get into the ISB. My older sister had their 1967 album The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter when I was growing up and I found it to be impenetrable.  Now, I really love their rootsy psychedelic instrumentation, whimsical lyrics, terrific vocals and the songs of Mike Heron and Robin Williamson.

Today’s Song Of The Day comes from their 1966 psychedelic masterwork, The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion.

Incredible String Band Version:

Judy Collins Version:

Song Of the Day – “Even In The Quietest Moments” by Supertramp

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supertrampAt the time of the release of Supertramp’s sixth album Breakfast In America, the band was on the precipice of a major commercial breakthrough that would see them top the U.S. charts for the first time. Yet, all of the elements were already in place and can be found on their previous platter Even In The Quietest Moments.

Before Breakfast, Supertramp was predominantly known for their progressive rock leanings, however what set them apart from all of the other prog groups was their attention to melody and tunefulness. Their music was less about technical prowess, dynamic key signatures and fussy arrangements and more about straight-ahead melody.

This came down to the group’s two distinctly different songwriters, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies. As a rule, Hodgson’s songs were the most pop oriented, while Davies’ contributions took them into darker more ruminative territory. Most of their songs were credited to both of them, but after 1972 the two seldom collaborated together and wrote individually. Sonically, Hodgson was the vocalist with the high-pitched, child-like voice that contrasted sharply with Rick Davies deeper timber and more straight-ahead delivery.

The band at this point featured Roger Hodgson on vocals, keyboards and guitars, Rick Davies on vocals and keyboards, Dougie Thomson on bass, John Helliwell on wind instruments and vocals and Bob Siebenberg (credited as Bob C. Benberg) on drums and percussion.

The acoustic guitar intro of Hodgson’ album opening “Give A Little Bit” announced a new, more commercially succinct sound that paved the way for Breakfast In America. However, the song was not a new song at all. Hodgson originally wrote it as a teenager in 1970, but believing it was too simple and not up to snuff, he held it back from the band for six years. Ultimately, the song reached the #15 spot on the U.S. pop charts.

The song has been used numerous times in conjunction with fundraising for disaster relief. About this aspect of the track, Hodgson has said, “I’m very, very happy to lend it to any worthwhile fundraising or disaster relief. For Hurricane Katrina, it was used a lot and for the tsunami also and for many others, so it’s very wonderful to have a song that can be used in that way. Very gratifying.”

Today’s Song Of The Day, the album’s title track, is perhaps the most intimate recording in the group’s entire canon. The gorgeous acoustic “Even In The Quietest Moments” was composed during a soundcheck, and is the only song on the album that was collaboratively written by both Hodgson and Davies. Hodgson: “It’s kind of a dual love song – it could be to a girl or it could be to God.”

Another Hodgson gem is “Babaji” that delves into the spiritual journey that ultimately led to his departure from the group several years later. A babaji is a Hindu holy man. “Lover Boy” is perhaps the most melodic song on the album and was written by Davies. The song was inspired by advertisements in men’s magazines offering tips on how to pick up girls.

The album concludes with the nearly eleven minute opus “Fool’s Overture.” The song began as a collage of musical ideas and the lyrics deal with the fall of human mankind. The track contains a sample of Winston Churchill’s “We shall fight them on the beaches” speech. The album’s cover shows an image of a piano covered in snow (which was a real photo and not superimposed) with the sheet music to “Fool’s Overture” in full view, however the actual music on the sheet is for “The Star Spangled Banner.”

The album rose to the #16 spot on the album charts and, at the time of its release, was the group’s most successful album…until Breakfast In America came along and launched the band into the mainstream. Hodgson would stay around for one more album before leaving the band for good. The band limped along for a few more years releasing several albums and touring, omitting Hodgson’s songs from their repertoire, before breaking up in 1988.

Today, Supertramp fans get a choice of a Davies-led Supertramp that tours around the world, or they can go see Hodgson plays separate solo shows. When asked whether Roger Hodgson might appear on some of Supertramp’s 2011 dates Davies replied, “I know there are some fans out there who would like that to happen. There was a time when I had hoped for that too. But the recent past makes that impossible. In order to play a great show for our fans, you need harmony, both musically and personally. Unfortunately that doesn’t exist between us anymore and I would rather not destroy memories of more harmonious times between all of us.”

Unfortunately, the studio version of today’s Song Of The Day is not available on YouTube. In its place, please enjoy this live solo version by Roger Hodgson.

Song Of The Day – “Playing The Game” Live 1978 by Gentle Giant

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gentlegiantmemoriesThey were one of the premier Progressive Rock groups in their day…right up there with King Crimson, Yes and Genesis. With a stellar lineup of brothers, Derek and Ray Shulman, Kerry Minnear, Gary Green and John Weathers, the Giant were adept multi-instrumentalists who would dazzle in concert with their intricate vocal arrangements and odd time signatures.

The group’s “purple period” of greatness was roughly from the 1972 release of Octopus through 1975’s Free Hand, and encompassed the albums In A Glass House (1973) and The Power And The Glory (1974). In America, their early albums were released by Columbia Records and starting with The Power And The Glory, they were released by Capitol. They, once again, returned to Columbia for Civilian, their final album which was released in 1980.

In England, their early albums through 1974 were all released on the Vertigo (or Vertigo/WWA) label, and all records from Free Hand onward were released by Chrysalis. This past week a new import five CD set called Memories Of Old Days – A Compendium Of Curios, Bootlegs, Live Tracks, Rehearsals and Demos 1975-1980 was released covering the Chrysalis years.

By 1977 Gentle Giant were trying to score a radio hit. Their last three studio albums featured shorter tracks in an attempt to get themselves played on radio. However, Punk Rock was burgeoning and the band was totally irrelevant to that fan base, and with their new radio friendly material, they were also becoming irrelevant to their own fan base as well.

Much of the material from Memories was culled from a 12-hour rarities collection released as an import in 2004 called Scraping The Barrel which was programmed by Dan Bornemark with the participation of the members of Gentle Giant. That collection featured four CDs, plus another 8 hours of material presented in the MP3 format. Memories Of Old Days is a five-CD distillation of that 12-hour set, featuring much of the material that was originally presented only in MP3 format. While some of the recording quality is subpar, the band’s performances are never less than exceptional.

This collection is for die-hard fans only and features tour rehearsals from 1975, 1977 and 1980, BBC concert recordings from 1978, and studio sessions from Free Hand, Interview and Giant For A Day. (For the uninitiated, I would recommend passing on this set and beginning with either Free Hand or The Power And The Glory.)

Today’s Song Of The Day originally comes from The Power And The Glory and is seen here from a 1978 performance of unknown origin. This song turns up in several different guises on Memories, as it was a staple of their concert sets from 1974 onward.  I was fortunate enough to see the band on the day before the Bicentennial (7-3-76) at the Calderone Concert Hall in Hempstead, New York, and I’m here to tell you that they were one of the most technically proficient and exciting bands I’ve ever seen!

By 1980 and the advent of Punk and New Wave, the purveyors of prog walked the earth like dinosaurs on the verge of extinction, so Gentle Giant packed it in. Derek Schulman went on to become a top A&R guy for Mercury Records and was responsible for signing Bon Jovi to the label…but let’s not hold that against him…

Song Of The Day – “Andmoreagain” by Love

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loveforeverchangesLove were the biggest rock act on the Elektra Record label, and along with The Byrds, were the darlings of the Whiskey a Go Go rock music scene on the Sunset Strip. That was until The Doors came along…

The Summer Of Love wasn’t all sunshine and flower power, and Arthur Lee wasn’t your average psychedelic band leader. For one, Lee was an African American in a white man’s rock world who was leading a mixed-race band. His music was based on his reality reflecting the trials and tribulations of inner city life channeled through a prism of drug addiction, street violence and the Vietnam War. His world was a bummer, and the lyrics on Love’s third album, Forever Changes don’t sugarcoat this fact.  – “Sitting on a hillside, watching all the people die/ I’ll feel much better on the other side” from “The Red Telephone.”

Convinced he was going to die at the age of 22, the group’s most pastoral album Forever Changes was fashioned by Lee as his final testament. The album was a mostly acoustic affair including horns and strings with arrangements by David Angel. It only climbed to #154 in the charts after its release in 1967, however over time the record has risen in stature as one of the great psychedelic rock records from the late 1960s, right up there with The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper and The Doors eponymously titled debut album.

The first two Love albums were terse psychedelic garage punk guitar albums that established the band as a top-tier draw around Los Angeles. However Love’s popularity was quickly surpassed in 1967 by the self-titled debut album from The Doors, profoundly affecting Arthur Lee and making the band’s clout fall dramatically within the confines of Elektra Records.

Born in Memphis, Lee was raised in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles and was strongly influenced by Mick Jagger. In contrast, Lee’s songwriting partner, Bryan MacLean was raised on Broadway and classical music and grew up in Hollywood. As a member of the Hollywood elite, he swam in his neighbor Elizabeth Taylor’s pool and dated Liza Minnelli.

Forever Changes was originally to be produced by Neil Young, but he backed out due to commitments with Buffalo Springfield. It is rumored that Young arranged the album track “The Daily Planet,” however Young has denied his involvement. The album was ultimately produced by Arthur Lee and Elektra Records producer Bruce Botnick (who had recently worked with Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass which could explain the mariachi trumpet sound on the album’s opening and closing tracks).

The album was also to be the first Love album to use studio session musicians in place of the actual band members who weren’t cutting it in the studio due to their drug-taking extracurricular activities. Wrecking Crew members Billy Strange (guitar), Don Randi (piano), Hal Blaine (drums) and Carol Kaye (bass) were brought in to the studio and were used on today’s Song Of The Day and “The Daily Planet.”

The presence of the studio musicians spurred the band members to clean up their act and they were used in lieu of the Wrecking Crew on the rest of the record. Nevertheless, this was the last Love album to feature the original group lineup of Arthur Lee on lead vocals and guitar, Johnny Echols on lead guitar,  Bryan MacLean on rhythm guitar and background vocals (lead vocals on “Old Man” and co-lead vocals on “Alone Again Or”), Ken Forssi on bass guitar and Michael Stuart on drums and percussion. (Don Randi was kept in the lineup for the sessions since the band didn’t have a regular keyboard player.)

MacLean quit after Forever Changes, but went on to write songs for the likes of Debbie Boone, Patty Loveless and his sister, Lone Justice member Maria McKee. Lee continued to release records under the Love band name, and with many different lineups under his own name until going to jail.

He was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in the mid-‘90s for illegally discharging a firearm in public. Since he already had a few minor infractions on his record, Lee got caught up in California’s “three strikes you’re out” legislation forcing him to do time.

After serving six years behind bars, Lee was freed in 2002 and returned to the music world backed by a group called Baby Lemonade. With the help of a 15-piece orchestra, Lee and the band went out on tour to perform Forever Changes in its entirety. I still have no idea what I was thinking when I turned down the opportunity to see Love perform the album on this tour…

Arthur Lee succumbed to acute myeloid leukemia in 2006.