Sunday, October 17, 2010

Secret History: 1970

In January 1970, well meaning but silly people were asking “Are the Sixties over?”. I know. I was one of them. And smart asses were answering “Technically, yes.” The real question was whether it mattered or not.

So the prior decade had barely ended, and everyone was already prepared to engage in sixties nostalgia. But it’s years like 1970 that make me question the need. Putting aside the obvious choices for great albums, like “Plastic Ono Band”, “After the Goldrush” and “Moondance”, we’ve still got:

The Velvet Underground are getting tired of making great music and not such great money, so they set out to make “Loaded”, their fourth, and most accessible record. Link. They partly succeed, making accessible music, even if nobody accessed it, except for “Rock and Roll” and “Sweet Jane”. So Lou Reed upped and left, and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT! I hope you’re happy.

Meanwhile on the West coast, the The Grateful Dead have decided to completely reinvent themselves with “Workingman's Dead”. Anyone who had just gotten over the electric mayhem of “Live/Dead” must have been shocked to hear the acoustic guitars and harmony of “Uncle John’s Band”. And over the course of the album, the Dead prove that this is no fluke, and with the help of lyricist Robert Hunter, practically invent Americana. Okay, the Band got there first, but the Dead were their worthy counterparts. I hated “Casey Jones” when I first heard it on the radio, where it just sounded slow and repetitive. But now, hearing it the end of this record, it sounds like a summing up of past and present. I don’t know how “Black Peter” managed to not become a classic. (Love those death songs!) This record has some of the best songwriting of the era.

Having just finished throwing jazz into an uproar with “Bitches Brew”, Miles Davis settles down into simply making a great record. With John McLaughlin on guitar, playing rock and roll, “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” is the record I think Miles was trying to make in the first place. It’s shorter and more to the point. And I’ll take it over “Bitches Brew” any day.

On “Five Leaves Left” - Nick Drake’s first album - a gentle soul distinguishes himself from the other singer-songwriters by his use of (non-syrupy) strings and the occasional jazz chord. And not emoting too much. What a relief after hearing Jackson Browne always telling us how miserable he was. (A hundred times better than Kenny Rankin, too.) Brits have more class than that. But then they die.

While they’re not white hot like on some prior records Creedence Clearwater Revival still make their next to last album “Pendulum" pretty great. Hidden away on it are the heartrending "Hideaway" and "Just a Thought", two of my favorite John Fogerty songs. And believe it or not, it’s nearly all over.

For a very short time after leaving Traffic, Dave Mason managed to avoid sounding like a lounge act. Luckily a tape recorder was on, and “Alone Together” is one of those AOR solo albums that is well worth the time. (My vinyl looks like vomit, by the way. How about yours?) Dave never quite got it this together again, alone or otherwise, even if he did make more money. The guitar playing is effortless, and I love the intermix of acoustic and electric. But it was all downhill from here.

It might seem that David Bowie could never resist a gimmick, but if you catch him early enough – pre- Ziggy Stardust let’s say - he’s satisfied just writing great songs. “Hunky Dory” is proof. (link) Jump in.
The critical consensus on Paul Kantner’s “Blows Against the Empire” is that it sucks, but I disagree. The lyrics are pretty weak, but Jerry Garcia brings the guitar, and David Crosby manages to not be a complete jackass. Ok, so Paul’s politics sound a bit dated. I still like the toons.

Before fame, but with several classics, Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon” isn’t quite on par with her very best, but it’s definitely worthwhile. For several songs, Joni manages to avoid her feared vocal swoops and leaps, as well as the background chorus’s reverent “oooohhhs” and “ahhhs”. She starts off with “Monday Morgantown” “For Free”, “Conversation” and the title song, and all I can say is Wow! And I’m not being ironic. She’s combining great melody, words and voice, and appears unstoppable. Then things bog down a bit with a few songs that involve DJs, priests and Graham Nash, in descending order. But Joni has a big ending planned for us, with “Woodstock”, “Big Yellow Taxi”, and “Circle Game”.

I should hate the slick “Time Passages”, but I love it. I should hate the slicker “Year of the Cat”, but I just don’t care. And I wouldn’t blame you for hating Al Stewart’s “Love Chronicles”, which came way before either of them, but I don’t think you will. The highlight is the nearly side long title song about a young man's sexual coming of age. By the way, that’s Jimmy Page on guitar, I guess in case that Zeppelin thing doesn’t work out for him. This album can also be found as part of the double disc “The Early Years”, which has many other great early moments.

Randy Newman pioneered the “so hateful you’ve got to like him” style of songwriting, and “12 Songs” is as unsentimental as it gets, featuring stalkers, racists and perverts. The best line comes early: “I’ll talk to strangers if I want to, I’m a stranger, too.” This is the most rock and roll – as opposed to rock - of Randy’s records, and very strong stuff. It’s also one of his best. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

And what the hell was going on with the Dead, anyway? Not content to put out one great album this year, they follow up with “American Beauty”, and suddenly, they’re songwriters. And singers, too! (Okay, not really.) Even Phil Lesh, whose “Box of Rain” is one of the most beautiful songs of the decade. If “American Beauty” is not quite as great as "Workingman's Dead", that's just fine with me. How many records are? My mom - not a Dead head, in case you were wondering - freely offered her approval of "Ripple", but "Broke Down Palace" is even better.

With Dolly Parton being such a “character” now, it’s hard to remember how way back when, she was one of the great singer-songwriters in country music. “The Best of Dolly Parton” (1970) is the proof, in the form of ten nearly perfect songs from the late sixties. Another master of melody with a soaring voice, her stories hold you to the end. What a beautiful soul.


So you see the world didn’t come to an end, musically or otherwise, when the sixties ended. But, as you can see from the abovementioned records, it became a little harder to find great music.

When I see a documentary from the seventies, the hair styles and fashion tend to make me, and I’ll bet you, want to run screaming from the room. And yet, while I would never suggest that Sixties music didn’t burn very brightly, I still admire the steady glow of the music of the Seventies.

More to come.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Jaybeephrenia: A Rock Opera

Subtitled "or, How to Not Buy CDs", sub-subtitled "the tragedy resulting from the conflict between one man's inner music lover and his even further-inner, inner cheapskate".

Or something like that.



Prelude/Intro/Medley/Overture:

Let me set the scene for you. It’s eighty degrees out. It’s sunny and there’s a slight breeze. In other words, it’s a beautiful late summer’s day - the kind of day that makes you feel happy to be alive.

So where was I? Playing basketball in the park? Fishing? Family picnic? Not quite.


Exposition:

I was out for a leisurely walk, fantasizing about punching slow-walking tourists in the back of the head, when I happened upon my favorite record store. A complete coincidence, I swear. But there I was, and well, it just wouldn’t have been right for me to not go in. They owners might think I was mad at them.

Even I knew that it would be crazy to spend my usual average two hours in there on such a nice day, so I negotiated a settlement with myself, limiting him to the bargain rack. And in this store it’s a pretty good one – it’s got CDs for $5.99, so although young downloaders may scoff, old geezer habits die hard, and I find it’s always worth a “quick” look. And of course, I wasn’t expecting to find anything…


Complication:

Alas, there’s the Grateful Dead’s first album. I was very pleased with "Anthem of the Sun" – their second album – which I finally got around to earlier this year. By now, I’d gotten pretty much all the worthwhile studio albums, except this one, so I thought that maybe this was the time. First I had to check if the Dead filled up the CD version of the original forty minute album with there usual additional 30 minutes of extras, like they had done with the other reissues? Why, yes! Put that one in the basket!

Then I see Los Lobos’s “Colossal Head”, one of their lesser known but still highly regarded records. I loved their first, admired their third, and liked their offshoot Latin Playboys. That settles it. Two.

Then there was “Safe as Milk” the first album by Captain Beefheart (and his Magic Band, of course). It’s been about thirty years since I got anything from the Captain, and over forty since this record came out. And it takes about that long to recover, so it was about time for another plunge. I'm sure it's what I’d call a summer record - light, melodic and cheerful, something that's enjoyable to offset the oppressive heat, or to complement today’s gorgeous weather. And so what if all the other records I've gotten by him are heavy, jarring and really, really strange? I'm sure this one's fine. After all, no one was doing anything weird in the sixties, right? That makes three!

And what’s this? Jeff Buckley’s “Grace” – one of those records that I keep hearing great things about, but I just don’t believe them yet. But at $5.99, maybe it's time. Four!


Crisis:

But four is a bit much for what was supposed to be a quick drop in. I should really put something back.

But then I look up and see the sign that says “2 for $10” and think, oh my. Or a variation thereof. Now, getting four is practically my duty. Otherwise I will have wasted the time of the security guard who checked my bag. It would all have been for nothing.

But my conscience says do the drill  anyway. So I begin my world famous winnowing process.


Climax:

Now all four CDs pass manage to get through the official rules without too much damage. But there turn out to be a number of rules I didn’t even know I had (a good thing – otherwise I’d have even more CDs and probably at least one less kid) and they kick in about now.

And the first thing I notice is that Jeff Buckley does a version of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah" - a song that I love. But it’s just so damned intense that I'm now doubtful. I’d been feeling kind of down at the time, probably because of my 53rd birthday, that I realize that I’m just not up for it. Later, Jeff, when I’ve rested. Three.

Then I think, do I really need another Los Lobos album? I know it will be good, but how good? Enough to take up that precious and dwindling space on my CD shelf? Space that should be reserved for a world masterpiece like Handel's Messiah, or the Ramones third album? For now, I have to say no. Two.

Then there’s the Dead. It breaks my rule number three and there’s an unofficial semi-rule that says if you bought something by a band this year already, if you buy another, you’ll be sorry. It’s not really borne out by the facts – the music is usually just as good, but if you’re me, you’ll feel bad anyway. (But if you’re like me, you feel bad about the whole Garden of Eden thing.) So back you go, Dead. See you in 2011. One

And then there’s Captain Beefheart. Well, if I'm not quite up for Jeff Buckley, I'm nowhere near ready for the Captain. So it goes back in the rack, and then there were none.

That's right. I put 'em all back. AND WALKED OUT OF THE STORE! Aren’t you proud of me?


Denoument/Epilogue/Coda, or Other Fancy Term for Later:

In a completely unrelated incident, I got two CDs for my birthday.

And, well, there were those two I ordered from the record club the week before.

Hey, I practically had to!  My son Mikey wanted one, and, well, they were on sale and that would have been a missed opportunity, and …


To be Continued….For the Rest of My Freaking Life