Top One or Two Hundred Whatevers, Part Three: Guitar Solos

This just another group of ten, with no attempt at being comprehensive. Just ten I immediately think of, or that are playing in my head at any given time.

But it’s better that way. This isn’t something I should have to think too hard about.

Oh, and the number of artists is ludicrously low. My mind is usually all over the place, but in this case these solos have gotten all the way into the lizard part of my brain. I’ll do another post if I make it back out to the monkey part.


Television:

Supposedly punks because of their intensity, they actually know how to play their instruments. Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd are both great guitar players.

There’s all kinds of loveliness on their second album, but it’s the first one that shook the world.

“See No Evil”:
The first guitar bangs out a primitive rhythm in a low register. The next one plays a repeating pattern that can only be described as snarling, this time in a higher register. Then Tom Verlaine chokes out - in yet a higher register - the words What I want, I want now! so you know these guys really mean business.
But it’s not quite fast enough to let the soloist just coast. It’s setting a level of intensity that will have to be heightened or it will all be for nothing. But Richard Lloyd's solo finds exactly the right space by going up yet another register, but not too high. Not yet. He plays a simple riff but builds the notes and the speed until there’s nowhere else to go, at which point he ends it with a descent (or is it an ascent?) into supremely controlled chaos.

“Marquee Moon”:
Nine minutes long, with dueling guitar solos taking up the middle, this one reminds me of climbing a mountain. Slow at first, but gradually increasing the intensity until it’s at a fever pitch.
It climaxes with a rush to the top of the mountain where you can feel the wide open space and even hear some (prehistoric?) birds. (You always risk sounding like an idiot when writing about rock and roll, don’t you?)
It was the song playing when a life change occurred. Friend and then Roommate Mike was moving to Europe.
While we shared an apartment, he and I would stay up all night drinking, talking and listening to music. On the day he left, I put this album on as he was getting ready. I picked it because we both loved it, and knew it would be the last one we’d listen to together.
He was all packed and waiting for the ride when this song came on, and it really felt like we were climbing that mountain. At the end, Mike put on his wings and jumped off the top, and I stayed behind because that’s what I do.
After the climax, it starts all over again. On the original vinyl, Tom Verlaine gets out a couple of lines of the verse before it fades out at 10:08, leaving you with the feeling that it continues on forever while you (but most likely me) have to head back down the mountain to face real life again, or perhaps the cemetery that they mention earlier in the song.


Crosby Stills Nash and Young: 

Yeah, who would have thought?

“Carry On” (Live Version):
In theory, this long live version of a pretty tight studio song should suck. But I’ve got it basically memorized. Sloppy, self-indulgent but brilliant nonetheless. The singing doesn’t even try to match the polished harmonies on the original, but that is more than made up for by the passion. Again, dueling guitars - this time courtesy of primal Neil Young and fluid Stephen Stills - that are worthy of the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead and Eric Clapton. Who said more isn’t better?


Eric Clapton: 

And speaking of this idiot, I like to recall the time when he could do no wrong (music-wise, that is):

“Let it Rain”
It helps that this is a very pretty song with a chord progression that just encourages a guitar hero to go nuts. But on the studio version, Eric manages to balance control, passion and invention. I used to love when it came on the radio when my Led Zeppelin-loving friends were around.

“Crossroads”
Yeah, I know that it’s been spliced together from several performances but as a piece of recorded art it’s astounding. There are so many shifts of phrasing, tone and angle of attack that it simply can’t be absorbed all at one time. You have to pick the part to pay attention to or risk exhaustion.

“Badge”
Who knew Cream could do a perfect pop song?  But here it is. Beautifully vague but evocative lyrics, emotional singing, George Harrison’s lovely guitar and then Eric's solo. In terms of compression, emotion and technique this might be his best.

“Sitting on Top of the World”
From Goodbye this is an overlooked masterpiece. It’s rough and raw with at least two changes in tone. But he is all over it. Intense as hell.


Stephen Stills:

“Go Back Home”
From the first Stephen Stills record, but it’s Eric Clapton who solos on this. Apparently recorded in the middle of his heroin addiction, he didn’t even remember doing it.
It starts off slow and easy but then halfway through Clapton jumps in and there is just no turning back. Another example of him improving a song without completely taking it over.

And as long as we’re talking about guitarists who are all over someone else’s record….


Derek and the Dominos:

“Why Does Love Have to Be So Sad?”
This is really all about Duane, and I must add that it’s not just the solo, but also the frantic pace of the damned thing. And then there are his fills that only tighten the screws further. So the bar is set very high when it’s time for the solo. And Duane doesn’t let us down. He matches the blistering pace and then some.
Clapton does his level best to keep up (and without Duane his would have been a perfectly good solo) but he may as well just be playing rhythm. And in a way, he kind of is.


And that’s it for now.

Okay, I know I left a lot out but since I limited myself to ten, my conscience is clear.

Like the first two One or Two Hundreds which were about voices and melodies and emotions, these guitar players provide the same thing without saying a word.

But I’m sure you can think of a zillion records I left out.

Come at me, bro!

You're Welcome, World!

Having done the world a favor in my last post, my noble (and Nobel) thoughts moved on to another musical genre - this time the blues.

And to my great embarrassment I realized that, until about ten years ago, most of my blues records - or rather most of the individual blues songs I owned were performed by that well known oppressed minority - white guys.

Cream, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin (whose confusion would occasionally make them forget to credit actual songwriters, but I’m sure that was all an innocent mistake).  Christ, even Steppenwolf!

So my first foray into blues - really a half-step - was Duane Allman’s An Anthology, where actual African Americans played the blues (and soul) but - in a blow against that major problem we all face: Reverse Racism - with the white guy (admittedly that GREAT white guy) on guitar.

Eventually I’d get Robert Cray’s Strong Persuader - a record that some purists don't consider the blues anyway - in 1986,

But it wasn’t until the late nineties when I got the box-set Chess Blues that I got to delve deeper.

I went little deeper still, getting best-ofs by Allman Brothers fave Elmore James and Eric Clapton fave Buddy Guy, having more and more fun as I went.

Then, during my amazon.com boycott I noticed that Barnes and Noble had a decent $5 CD section, where I came across this two-fer:



Howlin’ Wolf: Howlin’ Wolf/Moanin’ in the Moonlight

It would be perfectly understandable to mistake this two-album single-CD set as a Best-of, but it’s not. It’s just the Wolf’s first two records for Chess recorded in 1962.

And they are just incredible.

So incredible I didn’t get kicked out the house for playing it on a beautiful Sunday morning, which is a tribute to Mrs. Jaybee’s tolerance. But then again once you hear Wolf’s voice (and harp and guitar) it might be a good idea to go to church.

How can I convey how important these records are? How about if I list some of the songs here that have been covered by others?

“Shake for Me” - John Hammond, with Duane Allman
“Red Rooster” - The Stones
“Wang Dang Doodle” - KoKo Taylor
“Spoonful” - Cream
“Goin’ Down Slow” - Duane Allman
“Back Door Man” - oh, I don’t know, but somebody
“How Many More Years” - LIttle Feat/Led Zeppelin
“Smokestack Lightnin’” - The Dead
“I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)” - Lucinda Williams
“Forty Four” - Little Feat

And that’s just off the top of my head! These are all very good covers but rarely better than the Wolf versions. Which were all from just these two albums. You’d have to go to the Beatles to find an artist who attracted so many cover versions so fast.

Which makes these two records, in my limited and humble opinion, the two best blues albums I own, and are probably  among the greatest ever made.

One caveat: I’m annoyed that they dropped a song to fit these two albums onto a single CD. What was it with those old CDs? Did they only fit 65 minutes? What the hell!?  White people problems.

Another caveat: Dilettante that I am, I’ll move onto another genre by the time I finish typing this.

Otherwise these would be my top two albums of the year.

Howlin Wolf:  A
Moanin’ in the Moonlight: A-

“Moanin’ in the Moonlight”

Well it’s time for me to move on to redress yet more of society’s ills. What to do? What to do? Maybe I’ll try to bring more attention to overlooked artists like Miley Cyrus or Beyonce...

Blood on the 8-Tracks, Track Seven: You Can’t Go Home Again:

So, what to do with all of these old 8-tracks? Do I try to enjoy them again by re-buying them? Do I let sleeping dogs lie? (And, as you’ll see below, there were some real dogs.)

And if I do buy them again, do I get them in CD format? mp3? VINYL?!

As I said in the first of at least seven too many posts link about this, when deciding whether to re-buy an album, it pays to remember that I may have already played it out. In other words, no matter how good the record is, is it worthwhile replacing it if I’m just going to listen to it once and just file it away? Like plutonium, but in a good way, every record has its own half life.

And my tastes have changed, too. I don’t always know if a record that seemed great to Jaybee-the- pimply-fifteen-year-old will still seem so to Jaybe-the-grumpy-old-man-who-scares-the-four-year-olds-who-pass-by-his-house?

I have to keep this all in mind when considering which 8-tracks to replace. (You’d think I’d give World Peace this much thought.)

So how’m I doin?

Replaced So Far:

Dave Mason: Alone Together

When the odd song played on the radio, it epitomised the obscure-yet-classic-sounding solo albums of the early seventies. Actually sitting down to listen to such albums can prove disappointing. Not here, though. While the songs don’t convey a strong personal identity (a common flaw of many such “classic” solo albums) they are tuneful and well produced. This version of “Only You Know and I Know” beats the hell out of the Delaney and Bonnie version. A vinyl copy basically fell into my lap, and my life is better for it. A-

And this is what the original vinyl looks like. Pretty cool, huh? (Things that look like vomit are cool, right?)

Stephen Still and Manassas:

This double album showcasing Stephen Stills temporarily salvaging his career avoids sequencing hell, dividing it’s four sides neatly over the four tracks. And it fits on a single CD! It would be all downhill from here for poor Stephen, though. A-

Graham Nash: Songs for Beginners

There are more good songs here than Nash ever wrote for CSNY, so you wouldn’t blame me for thinking he didn’t have it in him. So it was a very pleasant surprise, that I finally got a chance to replace last year. Good then, excellent with the sequencing fixed. A-

Van Morrison: St. Dominick’s Preview

Not as brilliant as Astral Weeks or Moondance, but a little sharper than either Tupelo Honey or His Band and Street Choir, this one suffers only from a bit of schizophrenia by mixing radio friendly short ones, with long slow ones, but Van brings it all together nicely in the title cut. But I do miss how “Independence Day” would bleed into the other tracks on the 8 track, making everything sound like it was recorded on a boat on a foggy ocean in the middle of the night.  A-

The Rolling Stone: Let it Bleed

A true Roommate Mike garage-sale special. For the Stones, it’s actually a bit uneven. “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get WHat You Want” are amongst the greatest rock n roll songs ever, but that causes some of the rest to lag behind. Hidden Gem: “You Got the Silver”  A

The Redundant:

Live Cream

I loved this record and considered it to represent some of Clapton’s greatest work. It’s reviled by those critics who preferred rock n roll to be shorter and tighter. I understand, but my gut is still in agreement with fifteen year old Jaybee. So I just swallowed the Cream oeuvre whole with the box-set of Those Were the Days. But I just couldn’t win - my favorite track - “NSU” was in a different version.  Whatever. This is still a guilty pleasure.  A-

David Bowie Stage

Superior to the really crappy “David Live”, it’s a good representation of Bowie’s best 70s work. But I've got all these songs already in their original studio versions, so why bother? But if you don’t already have Low, Heroes or Station to Station, it’s highly recommended. A-

Contenders:

Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request

This one’s not bad at all. Just not quite on the level of many other early Stones records. I’ve had less reason to get it since getting the Singles Collection. But someday. Another Mike Special! B+

10cc

Remember these guys? This is their first and it’s really good. It’s got the Beach Boy vocals, the Graham Gouldman melodies and that British sarcasm. C’mon Amazon! I’m waiting! A-.

On the Fence:

These are the ones that may may suffer from either half-life or taste change considerations, in order of my increasing hesitation:

Poco - A Good Feelin’ To Know

Although I loved this record when it came out, and have had a couple of chances to replace it, I haven’t. I’m afraid to. Something tells me that Ritchie Furay doesn’t translate well to other decades. Maybe it’s me.

Graham Nash/David Crosby

Talk about not transcending a decade! This has got to be the quintessential half-assed supergroup albums of that time, and yet I’ve got fond memories of it.  If you thrust it into my hands I wouldn’t throw it back at you.

Marrying Maiden: It’s a Beautiful Day

I do recall it being real pretty, but with song titles like “Essence of Now” and “The Dolphins” you know it’s going to be like talking to a hippie. Pleasant enough but when it’s done, it’s DONE. By the way, the guy actually sings too well. Are you seeing a theme here? I’d replace it but I’m afraid that it’s REALLY going to suck.

Bonnie Raitt’s first album. I don't even remember. The sound quality was pretty poor.  And I think it got lost before I got to hear it more than once. Where the hell did it go, anyway?

Van Morrison: His Band and Street Choir

This one was always a bit lightweight for me. I’m more of an Astral Weeks fan. It certainly wasn’t bad, and “Domino” is great, but that’s the only one.

The Real Dogs:

Then there’s the question of quality, ahem, quality:

Loathe as I am to admit it, not every record I’ve ever gotten is deserving of additional plays. Sometimes there’s a reason why something is in the bargain bin. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

Renaissance: Scheherazade

One of Mike’s. (I never said he batted 1.000.) And if I gave it the time, it might prove to be okay. But prog-rock has not worn well for me and these guys come across way too serious.

The Mothers: Overnite Sensation -

This one’s all mine. I got thru it once but have no interest in trying again.

Quicksilver Messenger Service: Anthology

I think Mike got this one, but I can understand it. After all, it’s a Best Of. It’s got to have some good songs, right? Well, I gave it a single listen, hated the guy’s voice, and decided that life was too short. I was 22 at the time.

I realize that I’m being terribly unfair here, and could come to enjoy, or at least appreciate these albums if I gave them the time. But sometimes a record just gives off the aroma of “too much work to enjoy”, and these three really stank.

So What Does It All Mean?:

When it comes to music, I pride myself on not looking back. Given a choice between the known and unknown, I’ll almost always choose the latter.  

But it’s only human to want to occasionally relive old memories, even when you know they’re as likely to disappoint as they are to satisfy. Aside from the occasional loser (Thank’s a lot, ELP!)

I did okay.

I guess it’s all a matter of focus and commitment, and what you can achieve when you’re willing to devote your life to something important.

Some people (Ghandi) free a nation from the yoke of colonial rule. Some people (Jonas Salk) find a cure for the scourge of polio. 

And some people (me) move their old 8-tracks to CDs.

Secret History: 1967

 
Well, this is the year when all that is good supposedly happened. Sgt. Pepper, Monterey Pop, Summer of Love, etc. I'll admit it: Sgt. Pepper is a very good album, but hardly my favorite. The Stones "Between the Buttons" is lighter and poppier than "Aftermath", and thus a bit less brilliant. Buffalo Springfield's second album, "Again" has several classics on it. You can even it pick it up in the cutout bin, if you don't feel like springing for the "Box Set". (That Neil Young's got quite the racket going for him, doesn't he?)

But you already know all that.

Cream's "Disreali Gears"? Eh. I'm just as likely to listen to "More of the Monkees", but more on that later.

The Moody Blues – "Days of Future Past"? Well, I guess this one's our fault. We all liked it a lot, and well, they just kept at it for years afterwards. It's not a bad record at all, just too many strings. (This was back when some people's idea of art was a classical music orchestra.) Do we really need to hear "Nights in White Satin" (Which at first I thought was Knights. Picture that why don't you?) again? Ah, but "Tuesday Afternoon"! That one'll always work on me.

As unfair as this sounds, I can't quite suppress a yawn. Not over the quality, mind you. It's just that we've all been over this already. So let's go deeper.


 
If ever there was a record that defines a cultural divide, it's "The Velvet Underground and Nico".  Yeah, I know Nico sounds a bit odd, and I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't love the more experimental at the end, but if you don't like what precedes it, please stop reading now. One of the greats. If you've ever wondered why people thought Lou Reed was a genius, start here.

If you were lucky, you could catch "You Set the Scene" on Saturday afternoons on FM radio. If you're luckier still you bought "Forever Changes". Love was
one of the first interracial rock groups, and is sometimes thought of as the West Coast Velvet Underground. That's because beneath the beautiful melodies and soaring strings, you get lyrics about the dark underside of the Summer of Love. But beautiful nonetheless.

Roger McGuinn is holding back a bit on The Byrds "Younger Than Yesterday", which is why I like "Fifth Dimension" a little better. And David Crosby contributes the hilariously bad "Mind Gardens", but he redeems himself with "Everybody's Been Burned", one of his best songs. Chris Hillman fills in the gap with several catchy tunes. It's not quite their best, but still damned good.

My copy of Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" is on heavily scratched vinyl. But it's lighter on its feet than either "Volunteers" or "Bathing at Baxters". This might seem tame for a record that came out at the beginning of the psychedelic era, but it's tuneful and a delight.

With Moby Grape, it's more scratched vinyl. (I wish people would take better care of their records before giving them to me.) And yet the energy of this record is still shines through. I love the guitar riff that starts it all off, setting the mood immediately. The singing is great and songwriting isn't far behind. A tinge of country, but definitely rock. The classics are "Hey Grandma", "Indifference" and "Omaha", one of the most joyous rock and roll songs ever. "Listen my friends!..."

The Kinks "Something Else" is the kinkiest Kinks record ever, and almost as good as "Face to Face". Side one is a hard look at everyday English working class life. ("David Watts" is one of the best songs about class ever.) Side two is the Kinks at their strangest, with "Waterloo Sunset" as the finale.

Procol Harum's first album, "A Whiter Shade of Pale",
with
the title hit, the original "Conquistador" and a bunch of other excellent songs, may be their best. My vinyl copy is kind of woozy. The guy who punched the whole in the center must have been drunk that day. And because the sound quality on vinyl is poor, Robin Trower's guitar sometimes sounds like a kazoo. Hey, not your fault, man.

The obvious Jimi Hendrix album to own is "Are You Experienced?". Even if you're tired of the hits, the non-hits and the CD bonus tracks keep you coming back. But how about "Axis Bold As Love"? It doesn't burn as brilliantly, but it gives off a nice quiet glow. A great evening album.

Poor Richie Havens. Even in the sixties, they made you dress up for album photos.
Clearly taken prior to Woodstock, the cover shot of "Mixed Bag" shows him sporting
thick
glasses, a blazer and dress pants. He looks like he's attending private school. This is the record that provides the title for a very annoying radio program, but the record itself is very pretty and worthwhile.

And speaking of 60's folk, don't forget Nico's "Chelsea Girls", where you get a little bit of sixteen-year-old-Jackson-Browne-sensitivity, a Bob Dylan song where the singer actually hits the notes, Tim Hardin and the Velvet Underground all in one place. Quite the bargain I'd say.  But don't ask me.  Ask my wife, who, after a couple of plays, said "I can't believe how good this is."  (Hey, what that's supposed to mean, anyway?  Okay, I admit that I may have, on occasion, put her through some...questionable music.)



You won't hear these songs when your local radio station does a Top 1000 Songs of All Time holiday weekend special. But I'll bet you're so tired of the songs they do play that you won't be feeling nostalgic anyway. The records I mention above will remind you that there was more in the 1967 universe than our short term cultural memory can now imagine.

My Eric Clapton Problem, and Hopefully, Yours

I made a number of resolutions for the New Year.  You know, the usual - be more negative, appreciate things less, be less patient. 

And how to better put these resolutions into practice than to reconsider an old idol?   Especially one who has suffered great tragedy? 

So first let me say sorry, Eric, about what happened to your son.  And I’m glad you’re not drinking any more.  But god (remember your other name?), you were such a jackass.

Like any number of other artists who started out in the sixties, and managed to not die, Eric Clapton is still making music.  I wish he’d stop.  Baby boomers continue to buy his records when they could be listening to more worthy artists, many of whom can actually sing and write songs.

I’m not saying that he’s never written a great song, or sung well.  But Jesus Christ, he's been at it for almost fifty years.  I’ll bet you’ve written some good ones by now, too.

These nasty thoughts are prompted by a couple of things.  The first was my post last year about Led Zeppelin, where I sort of champion Eric over Jimmy Page.  The second is my reading of the Clapton autobiography,

So a few observations:

Way back when, Clapton seemed like the quintessential nice guy musician.  Always part of a band, didn’t sing much, but boy could he play guitar.  This period – with the Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes - represents his high point.  He also did a lot of memorable work as a sideman on other people's records.  This seeming shyness was very winning, and made his subsequent addictions seem more forgivable. 

But based on his autobiography, I must conclude that Eric was a drunk stupid idiot, and I no longer have the patience for people like that, or their current and recalled misdeeds.

Yeah, I know he stopped drinking a while ago, and he’s done some good work with his foundation, but since his book has a happy ending for him, let me just speak for the humans who had the misfortune of crossing his path, just as a sort of rebuttal.

It’s not that he comes across as an asshole.  But given all the dumb things he recounts in his book, he does sound like someone who spent too much time around people who told him his sh*t didn’t stink.

Looking back on what I took for his shyness, I now see someone who couldn’t stay with one band for more than two years.  And once the records get labeled “Eric Clapton” I start to have problems.  Aside from the live stuff, which of his records do you play with any consistency?  And don't tell me about his blues records.  They all could have used a singer.  (Is it me, or did he actually sing better when he was younger?)

Looking back on that huge pile of mediocre solo albums, I can’t help but think that Eric should have always remained a sideman.  Another George Harrison, if you will – someone who can contribute the occasional gem, but who mainly plays guitar real good.  Then, every few years, they’d let him go make a pretty good solo record.

He mentions how he let everyone down at the concert for Bangladesh, because of his heroin addiction, where he at least showed up and did his job as a sideman, but not so during his 1974 tour – where he was the, uh, headliner - when he let hundreds of thousands of fans down by showing up drunk and playing  abbreviated sets. 

The typical fan – like me (no, I’m not too bitter) - spent hours standing in line for tickets, came to the shows hours early because of the general admission seating, only to see an seventy minute show.  In other words we each put in about six hours to Eric's 1 1/2.  Oh, and the money.  We probably paid about $7.50 per ticket – then a high price.  So Eric, I figure you owe us five bucks each.  I’ll take mine as an eggplant parmigiana hero from my local pizzeria, without the spit, thank you.

The bottom line here is that you shouldn't have hit the road until you were ready to play.  That's what people came for.  He even mentions how he played an entire show lying on the ground drunk, but rationalizes it by saying that everyone in the audience was drunk, too.  Well, I guess that’s what a drunk would say.

And what about the driver of the van you smashed into when you were driving drunk?  Was he okay?  You don't say.

And now that George Harrison is dead, you give the impression that you and he weren’t as close as we all thought.  Better to make the whole Patti Harrison episode appear a little more palatable, I guess.  What a jerk.

You express surprise that punk rockers saw you as part of the rock establishment, since you didn't consider yourself part of it.  But you were doing whatever you liked and getting paid a ton of money for it.  That’s sort of the definition of it, Eric.  If you weren't part of the rock establishment, who was?

I should have stopped buying your records after “EC was Here”, which I got because it was live and you actually play guitar on it.  Now I find out that you really were as sexist as the cover indicates.  And there I was, thinking it was a joke.  I was dumb enough to get “No Reason to Cry”, which was not terrible, by the way.  Just unnecessary.

Jon Landau’s criticism of your guitar playing while Cream was at the height of its fame is often cited as one of the reasons Cream broke up.  But you totally ignore it in your book.  You attribute it to hearing the Band and wanting to join them.  But they already had a guitar player, Eric.  And let’s face it, you would have quit after a couple years anyway. 

The sad fact is that Clapton made more memorable music between 1965 and 1970 than during the nearly forty years since then.  His electricity drenched circa-1968 solos were his signature sound.  Self indulgent?  Yes, but that was the order of the day.  His blues licks were awesome, but I’m in no position to say how original they were.  To someone like me, they were revelatory.  I’ve just been a little slow on finding their origins.  But just you wait.

So Eric, you should have enough money and adulation you need by now.  Some of it even earned.  So why not just join a band, let someone else sing and write the songs, make some records and tour?  I dare you to keep that up for five years.

Can’t?  Fine.  Then just go away.

My Led Zeppelin Problem, and Yours, Maybe

There are some artists you love, some you think are okay and some that you hate. If you like them, they’re great, if you don’t, they suck. Taste as aesthetic judgment, right?

But then there are those artists who you don’t like as much as you think you should. Or you may respect their talent and acknowledge that their music is well made. But it just doesn’t move you.

Is it just a matter of taste, or something more? What if you, for some reason, actually dislike the artist? Would this get in the way of your enjoying their music? You’d think the two things were separate. I mean, can’t I just listen to the music without it getting personal? (Actually, I can’t even eat breakfast without it getting personal, but that’s another post entirely.) Apparently not. For some of us, music, like sex (now, anyway) requires that we like the person.

This is my Led Zeppelin problem, and it has strained more than one friendship. When my wife and I compare our teen years, it appears that the Led Zeppelin issue could separate neighborhoods, and even nationalities. After all, how many Irish Led Zeppelin fans do you know? (Actually I know two, but stay with me on this.) How many Italian Grateful Dead fans? (See?) There even seemed to be a correlation to your choice of recreational drug.

But to bring it back to me, just how did Zeppelin and I get to this point?

I trace it back to when I was twelve, and hanging out at my best friend’s house. (We almost always hung there instead of my house. Otherwise, he’d be writing about the Grateful Dead right now.) His big brother put on “Led Zeppelin II”, which had just come out. I’d never heard of them. When it got to all the sound effects in the middle of “Whole Lotta Love”, he made the statement that they were “better than the Beatles”, who couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t was more like it, but what did I know then? He was the one with every Beatles album. And, since older kids were the supreme authorities on everything, this was a major challenge to one of my most deeply held beliefs.

To make matters worse, their fans thought that Jimmy Page was “the best guitar player in the world”. In other words, better than Eric Clapton, who, I happened to know, was the best. The idea that some loud, obnoxious axe-man could be better than modest, unassuming Eric was appalling. (A major theme in my Irish/Catholic youth was that conceited people shouldn’t be better at something than modest people, which was why I hated anyone with a high opinion of themselves. Even Elvis Presley’s sneer signaled egotism instead of libido, which was not yet on my radar.) In retrospect, it might have been that Eric just had better press. Still, after all these years, I don’t quite get it. And when you’re twelve – which is where I am now, emotionally – these things matter.

Now let’s add the swaggering, screeching Robert Plant, who was everything I hated in a singer. I much preferred poor, moaning Greg Allman, or kind but demented Jack Bruce. And moreover, Mr. Plant must be made to answer for all of the shrieking, big-haired male singers that followed in his wake.

So for me, Led Zeppelin was the epitome of rock and roll excess. Their music was unseemly. I would never be able to defend them against my parent’s objections like I could the Beatles.

So I hoped that they would just go away, and that the world, as I defined it, would right itself. But just when the memory of their last LP was fading, another one would come out and sell millions, and it would all start over again.

It was only much later that I learned that Led Zeppelin had a reputation for redoing old blues standards and taking songwriting credit. Although these facts do serve to justify my more ethical objections to them, to be fair, I only became aware of this after I decided that I wouldn’t like them. (But jeez, guys, I think you owe some people some money!)

And on top of all of this, add their reputation for debauchery while on tour. So you can see how a tight-ass like me could really work up a case against them. The libertarian in me, however, feels that the young woman who got slapped with the fish, probably chose to get slapped with the fish. (Don’t ask.)

So they were loud, dishonest, obnoxious, leering, sexist, and remarkably successful with women. And there I was listening to the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

And their fans seemed…well, kinda dumb. This sounds awful, and obviously wrong, in retrospect, but it just didn’t seem like the Zeppelin fans were hanging with the honor students. But they didn’t seem too worried about it. They were too busy having a good time. And if that isn’t a good reason to resent them, I don’t know what is.

So, why should any of this matter?

Well, this issue reared its ugly head again when my wife asked me to add some Zeppelin CDs to our next BMG order. (It had slipped my mind that she ran with a Zeppelin crowd back in the day. And here I was thinking I had her brainwashed.) Had this request come earlier in our relationship, it would have been tantamount to her saying she wanted to see other people.

But now, the notion (buying the CDs, that is) wasn’t as appalling as it might once have been. Still, it was galling to have to guide her to the album that had “Whole Lotta Love” on it, which she thought was their first record. So I – the non fan – rattled off the songs from that record for her. (Doesn’t everybody know this stuff?)

So we got down to the business of deciding which albums to get. We already had several on vinyl, and briefly considered getting the 10-CD-complete-album-box-set-yadayadayada, but declined to pay the $80. Instead, we got four for about $25. She wanted II and IV. I wanted III. Neither of us wanted I, but we got it anyway because, well, what’s the sense in having II, III and IV if you’re not going to get I, too? It wouldn’t be right. It also helped that BMG was having one of those buy-one-get-40 sales. (Because you were going to get those 40 CDs anyway, right?)

So we’re talking the Zeppelin pantheon, more or less. And just how do these records stack up, against, say, the first four Allman Brothers or Cream albums?

Sorry fans, but “Led Zeppelin I” is rip-off central (just type “Zeppelin songwriting credit” into Google) but it has the most music, and man, they sure had their own sound. The Allman Brother’s first record is perfectly good, and it captures their emerging personality. “Fresh Cream” is the most modest of the three. It’s got excellent blues covers, but the originals could be better. I give a very slight edge to Zeppelin, for gall.

“Led Zeppelin II” is, again, a more generous album (albeit, not towards the artists they are still stealing from), and less bloated than their first. But I still prefer the high points of “Idlewild South”. “Disreali Gears” – a supposed classic – is not bad, just a little dated. A slight edge to the Allmans.

The third albums don’t compare easily since two of them are double albums - one all live, and the other half-live. But since such albums usually suck, it all comes out in the wash anyway. “Live at the Fillmore” is the classic. “Wheel’s of Fire” is a mish mosh, with weird studio stuff and loooong live stuff. It can be very silly, but it’s still fun. “Led Zeppelin III” is a departure, and not bad at all. And with all the acoustic stuff, it’s actually pretty brave. But the clear edge goes to the Allmans.

Now, call me crazy but I happen to love the “Eat a Peach”’s 35 minute “Mountain Jam”. Add to that “Blue Sky”, “Little Martha” and “Melissa” and you’ve got a very strong LP. It’s probably my personal favorite here. Cream’s “Good-bye” shows them limping off stage - the sound on the live cuts sucks. But side two is excellent – highlighted by an intense “Sitting on Top of the World” (crappy sound and all) and “Badge” (greatest guitar solo on a pop song, ever?). But you have to give “Led Zeppelin IV” its due. The songwriting is blossoming, the drumming powerful, and production, courtesy of Jimmy Page, absolutely sterling. There’s not a bad song here. It’s one of those records that I don’t love, exactly, but that I know is great. On the whole, a tie between Zeppelin and the Allmans.

Now, I wouldn’t blame you for totally disagreeing with me on all four albums. I mean, talk about your apples and oranges! But that’s exactly my point. Some of us have a preference, and I’m struggling with music I prefer versus music I know is great on its own terms. So how do I explain the fact that Zeppelin has gone toe to toe with the Allmans, who I supposedly prefer, a clearly best Cream, record-wise?

Well, I’ve come to respect Jimmy Page as a sound maker. As a producer, he used to overdo it, of course. Early on, he was always throwing sound affects into the middle of songs. Later on, he learned how to give a record a unified sound, to better effect. And he always strove to add a unique guitar sound to each song.

Paradoxically, this was my problem with him as a guitar player. He was always more sonic than musical for my taste. His actual solos could be a little sloppy, sometimes. Maybe someday I’ll hear the great Jimmy Page solo, but I haven’t yet. And that includes the little display in “Whole Lotta Love”, and the one at the end of “Stairway to Heaven”, which I think is his most Clapton-esque. I’ve heard that Jimmy Page appears on about 60% of all the English rock records between 1963 and 1966. Someday, I hope to find a really good collection of the best ones so that I can fully appreciate his talent.

But I now see that Jimmy Page was consciously trying to make rock and roll records. So he didn’t just hang out until his solo came, like Clapton would. Jimmy Page is all over his records, playing lead, rhythm, acoustic, twelve-string, banjo, mandolin, all in the service of making the end result distinct from start to finish. And that counts for a lot.

And just how did this abrasive band could come up with such beautiful songs as “Thank You”, “That’s the Way”, “The Battle of Evermore” and “Going to California”? Man, the snob appeal of looking down on a supposedly loud, stupid band wore off pretty quickly.

But, not to worry. It’s not like I’m standing around with a Zeppelin CD in one hand, and an Allmans CD in the other, unable to decide what to play. That's what your 5-CD-carousel changer is there for - to get you through such crises. Besides, I’m probably listening to something else altogether now. (Except for the next month or so, since the BMG order just came in.)

When I was a kid, I wanted to believe that you couldn’t be good at something unless you were nice, too. So it’s been hard for me to admit that you can admire or respect someone you don’t particularly like, but it’s time for me to admit that Led Zeppelin has earned a place in my CD player.

So I think I’ve finally made my peace with the blimp from hell.