Missed Otis Regrets

I was born in 1957, and although my parents had many albums by Irish artists, music may as well have not existed for me until 1963, when the Beatles hit the airwaves. At first, I, a first-grader, resisted because "girls liked them." But after half a dozen hits or so, I knew my obstinacy was getting ridiculous. I became a huge fan.

So, my first pleasurable exposure to music was the f*cking BEATLES. Then the British invasion and the American response to it. And so on. The way I'd describe the era to young people was "you couldn't put on the radio without hearing yet another great song."

Perfect right? Well...

One less-than-perfect aspect was my disdain for almost any other kind of music. Some of it was generational - a defensive (as in "a good offense") reaction to adults' constant criticism of the music I liked. So I'd deride any music performed in a black and white movie, or played by people with short hair or suits. 

I also found oldies pathetic (not enough guitars), Motown had too much brass, and R&B had too much rhythm and not enough melody. Not to worry. I had plenty of "my music" to get me through the decade.

I read somewhere that after MLK was assassinated, some African American artists gave much less of a f*ck about appealing to white audiences, or, for that matter, playing with white musicians. The resulting music brimmed with pride, confidence, and rhythm. But it rubbed me the wrong way. White Irish Catholic that I am/was, I interpreted it as egotism. Around that time, I vaguely recall seeing a documentary featuring Aretha Franklin and James Brown, showing them rousing their audiences into a frenzy. The music was as un-Beatles-like as I could imagine, and I stared at the TV screen uncomprehendingly. 

It only got worse in the seventies. Funk, glam rock, disco, etc. All worthless! All fads! All about clothing and spectacle (not to mention makeup), and not about the music like my favorite Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead. Some artists used humor, advocated for having a good time and, shudder, dancing, which I w/could not do. WIC that I am/was, I found it all very hedonistic. Music, after all, was meant to be serious!

And yet, all this time, I was reading a lot about music. Even a musical Puritan like me could see I was missing out on a lot. Circus magazine got me to try middle-period Kinks, if not the New York Dolls, Hit Parader got me into prog rock, and Rolling Stone got me into singer-songwriters. 

At the end of the seventies, a lot of "best of the decade" assessments began to appear, and reading them hammered home how much music I didn't hear. And if I was honest with myself, I didn't want to hear. Something had to change.

I'm not sure what got me to lighten up a little. (It's a lifetime project.) Was it hearing the Sex Pistols and Ramones albums playing in the Brooklyn College Student Center? Was it just vanity and wanting to be different? For whatever reason, I began to cautiously explore. 

And honestly, not all of those efforts resulted in epiphanies. Sometimes, it would just be puzzlement. Change takes time. But there was enough good stuff to encourage me to keep going.

In the early eighties (not mine, but they are getting closer), armed with Robert Christgau's Rock Albums of the Seventies and The Rolling Stone Album Guide, I began my quest to catch up on what I'd missed, and I haven't looked back since.

One artist was Otis Redding. I picked up the double-LP The Best of Otis Redding, which I dutifully played a few times but wouldn't fully appreciate for decades.

Years passed. Vinyl had long been relegated to my basement, along with the turntable.  I'd occasionally dip into this album. which sounded better and better. 

Then, this year, I noticed Amazon (f*ck you, Jeff, btw) offered a 5-pack of Redding's first five albums for a reasonable price. It had been, oh, forty years, so I felt almost ready and picked it up this past August.

It covers the same ground, more or less, as the Best-Of, although in more detail, of course. Alas, it stops just short of "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay".

Not to worry. 

Otis Redding: Original Album Series

Like many other sixties-era albums, these records are flawed by a hesitation to go all-out. Record companies still insisted on including covers of other artists' hits to broaden their appeal as much as possible. And here, the segues from brilliant original to lame cover can be jarring. But it gets better as he goes long by making them his own.

Being an Album Guy, I value consistency more than I should. If I went by Total Joy Provided (TJP?), each of these records would be at least an A-minus:

• Pain in My Heart (1964): The covers are fine ("Stand by Me") if inessential. Otis plays it too safe, largely keeping their arrangements intact. Typical first album hesitation. "Louie Louie" is definitely the weirdest. Otis may be performing a public service (or not) by making the lyrics somewhat comprehensible. He sings the hell out of it, though. "You Send Me" has some nice vocal turns, but it's not unique enough to matter. "Lucille" doesn't even have that. But it's the very first song - the title track - that gets it exactly right. Other classics and near classics include "Something is Worrying Me, "These Arms of Mine", "I Need Love", and "That's What My Heart Needs", which may be the one that contains the seeds of his greatness. B+ 

• The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965): Right off the bat, the band sounds a bit more muscular. Better production, maybe? Again, the opener - "That's How Strong My Love Is" rules. There are several, somewhat lesser songs like it, too. And as the title says, it's mostly ballads, so the pacing gets a bit sluggish. He does well with Chuck Willis' "It's Too Late", later covered nicely by Derek and the Dominoes(!), among many others. "Your One and Only Man" is a great discovery. Fewer classics here, but no bad covers. A-

• Otis Blue: Otis Sings Soul (1965): Because Sam Cooke - Redding's idol - passed away the prior December, three of his songs are covered here. Two - "Shake and "A Change Is Gonna Come" are Redding classics. "Wonderful World" is less so. And the basically unchanged Four Tops' "My Girl", less even than that. So it's a little short on originals. A shame since they're all great, like "Ole Man Trouble" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long". I'd include"Respect" for the drums alone, but AF took that into the stratosphere. But halfway through, the covers stop the momentum. Although "Rock Me" and "Satisfaction" are fine. Excellent, but with two annoying covers. B+

• The Soul Album (1966): Highlights include the wonderful "Cigarettes and Coffee", "Good To Me",  and "I've Been Loving You Too Long". Again, fewer highs than Otis Blue, but more consistent. No bad covers, and he makes "Chain Gang" his own. A-

• Complete and Unbelievable: Dictionary of Soul (1966): The songs are strong, and most of the covers are obscure enough to blend right in. The band is in full command. Classics include "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)", "Lover's Prayer", and "Try a Little Tenderness", which - via an imaginative arrangement - shows off his power, grittiness, and way with a melody. Perhaps his greatest performance. The live version below from Monterey Pop is even better. In terms of consistency, this one's the best of the five. A-

There would be a couple more albums after these. His appearance at Monterey Pop greatly broadened his audience. The future seemed bright and clear, but it was not to be. His plane went down on the way to a show, and this future superstar-to-be was instead dead at 26. 

The following month, "Dock of the Bay" was released. And the rest is, well, our own rather f*cked up history.

So you can dig deep like me, or, assuming you're not guilt-ridden due to your original lack of appreciation, grab a Best Of. Either way, you'll have beaten me by about forty years.

                     

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!

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.

Sound Advice - Belle and Sebastian's "If You're Feeling Sinister"

The other night, while watching one of those VH1 Top something of the 80s, I couldn’t get over how similar all of the music was. Regardless of style or genre, it was all very, very…busy. Everyone seemed to be trying to fill up every last bit of aural space available - sometimes with volume, but mostly with…stuff. There must have been a fear of leaving any moment empty of sound, as if an occasional silence couldn’t contribute to the overall musical effect.

Since this was the era of the music video, the feeling may have been that although the video image was meant to complement the music, it was really competing with it – sort of an updated version of radio’s fear of “dead air”, where even a moment of silence could cause a potential listener to bypass your station. Instead, in this case, it was feared that any letup in the sound would give the image the chance to take over. But I can’t say that the resulting information overload ever conveyed a performance as real or as intimate as the most over-the-top show stopper from an MGM musical. And I hate musicals.

I’ve got nothing against commercial music, and even consider 1984 (Springsteen, Prince, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner) a banner year for it. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with a professionally recorded album. Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” and the Pet Shop Boys’ “Very” are terrific records, as slick or even ornate as they might be, because they are also full of emotion.

And loud is good. too. I caught the Clash at Shea Stadium, opening for the Who, in 1982. The latter were well past their prime, but they had the sound system needed to fill that huge space. I hate to admit it, but that night, they were better than the Clash. Even if the Clash used the Who’s equipment, I doubt that they would have been better. It just seemed to me that their music was better suited to a smaller space, like Bond’s, where I had seen them the year before, to much better effect. But that night at Shea belonged to the Who.

I have more of a problem with what I call the “arena” sound, which is when an artist’s original conception of their music is based on it being played in a huge arena. I suppose if you’re very famous, thinking this way makes a lot of sense, but I’m referring to a sound I identify with the “hair bands” and commercial heavy metal music, which is hard to imagine being played in a club or even mid-sized auditorium. I guess it’s “rock” music, in the strict sense of hardness, but I wouldn’t call it rock and roll, which should connote motion and joy. Tens of thousands of people shaking their fists in unison reminds me more of a Nazi-rally than a party. Or maybe I’m just a snob that hates crowds. In any case, more is not necessarily better.

So my preference is for something more modest, more intimate. That doesn’t mean that it has to be quieter, though. I mean something that sounds like it’s being played in a space that accommodates somewhat less, actually way less, than 50,000. Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” (from “Substance”, or the soundtrack to “Control”) sounds like it was recorded in a padded room from which the singer is desperately trying to escape. The guitarist is trying to help him by playing louder than anyone I’ve ever heard, and not just because he’s turned the amp up to 11 – everyone does that - but rather because it’s all happening in this very finite space. It feels like the walls are about to crash down around you. Another example of this is “Just Like Honey” by the Jesus and Mary Chain (from “Psychocandy”, but it can also be heard at the end of “Lost in Translation”), which conveys a somewhat larger room, but one that is still going to collapse anyway. With all of the distortion and echo, the guitar is so loud that it’s almost funny, especially since the singer sounds like he just woke up.

My favorite music has all of the accompaniment that it needs – but no more and no less. It’s true to itself, not necessarily the company you’re having over. So sometimes it’s best to listen to this music alone.

I notice this a lot with older albums. They have a hard time competing with the clarity that current recordings are capable of, let alone the ones that insist on throwing everything at you. I sometimes have to brace myself when I’ve bought an old album because I’m afraid that the sound quality will be an obstacle to the enjoyment of the music. It’s important to get past that if you ever hope to enjoy music recorded more than a couple of decades ago. Of course, this is irrelevant to most people, who are perfectly happy with what is put right in front of them. “But,” as the Beautiful South say, “you want more!”

There are many older albums, like “Layla”, that have quite a lot going on inside, but that don’t sound busy. Maybe that’s because it can’t yield those details with perfect clarity anyway. Over the years, I’ve gotten it three times - twice on vinyl and once on CD – each time assuming it would be a little clearer. And it was, sort of. Yet, it seemed to have this impenetrable core that I wanted to somehow pierce without ruining. (We do “murder to dissect”, after all). But “Layla” is a great example of music that will not be dissected. The core of it is there but I’ll never quite make it out.

And yet there are a number of current artists who accept, and actually embrace, similar limitations in sound quality. They don’t worry that all of the musical details get through the speakers in pristine condition, instead counting on overall impact. This approach – sometimes called lo-fi – has been around ever since the punk era, and is a virtual guarantee that the record will not get much airplay. (Radio audiences don’t like to have to keep playing with the volume knob.) But I think these artists are trying to make music you can’t get to the bottom of.

When the lo-fi approach is used now, the artist may be using a deliberate strategy to evoke the sound of an era for which lo-fi was a given, not a choice. In other words, it’s a cheap shortcut to a certain audience’s emotions. You could even argue that, with better recording techniques available now, lo-fi is used to cover up bad technique, with the result that it also covers up potentially good music.

What really matters, though, is the final result. Just try to think of bad lo-fi music as the racket coming out of your neighbor’s house. Good lo-fi is the racket coming out of yours.

And besides, some lo-fi records are actually kind of pretty. There are albums with music that is so great that it takes me a while to realize that the recording isn’t crystal clear.

One great example of this is “If You’re Feeling Sinister” by Belle and Sebastian. This is one of those rare records that will bring you back to a time that may have never existed in the first place. It might sound a bit muddy compared to other contemporary CDs, but it will sound quite pleasant to those of us who used to listen to their music on portable record players.

That evocation of another time is also managed by the use of certain instruments that were in vogue at that time. B&S manage to avoid the more obvious ones, like the farfisa organ or - god help us - the sitar. They prefer instead to add a touch of electric piano or even vibes, and that makes all the difference between what is merely pleasant, and what is haunting.

But B&S won’t let you off with mere nostalgia. Their subject matter is a little more modern. There’s the cool but admiring one about the “beautiful people”, the couple who thought they were seeing other people but maybe aren’t, and the woman who’s into bible studies and S&M. And it’s hard as heck to keep the genders straight. So by the time you hear “The Fox in the Snow”, the emotion is well earned.

When I first put this record on, I had to turn it way up because it starts off at a whisper. The first song slowly builds in volume, all the while unfolding its melody, until, like a wave at the beach, it knocks you down and washes you away. Several other songs pull at you like the undertow before you realize how far out you are.

I’ll admit that it can be a bit precious, and the singing’s occasionally weak. There’s the bad joke (rhyming “minister” and “sinister”) in the chorus that takes away from the otherwise beautiful title song. “Me and the Major” tries to fit in too many lyrics into the flow of the music. And “Get Me Away From Here” is fun until you hear “I’m dying” a dozen times. It reminds me too much of the Smiths.

But there are at least three absolute classics (“Seeing Other People”, “Like Dylan at the Movies” and “Fox in the Snow”) here, and a couple of others that come close, although we’d probably disagree about which are which.

So, even with some minor flaws, it’s still one of the best records of the 90s (or is that the 60s?). And as beautiful as I think this music is, I don’t play it for company. Belle and Sebastian are a very private pleasure.

----------------
Now playing: Belle and Sebastian - Seeing Other People
via FoxyTunes