40 Years Ago Today: First Wings Album Released

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Wild Life is largely high on sentiment but rather flaccid musically and impotent lyrically, trivial and unaffecting.
John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone


Perhaps Paul McCartney's most critically maligned album, Wild Life ( released December 7, 1971)  deserves to be heard at least once. Yes, it is Lo Fi and many of the songs seem to have been written in 5 minutes or less but that's part of the charm. It feels spontaneous and innocent ( thanks to the frankly unskilled presence of Linda) and even sloppy in places. Well, it was recorded in two weeks. But give a listen and you'll find some fine moments among the filigree.

Wings ( made up of Paul, Linda, Ex-Moody Blues singer and guitarist Denny Lane and Ram drummer Denny Seiwell) was McCartney's attempt at putting together a band that could play live.



The first track, "Mumbo", rocks as hard as anything McCartney has done since "Helter Skelter". Those aren't words he's singing by the way. McCartney--who created such beautiful lyrics for "Yesterday" and "Here, There and Everywhere" -- is phonetically tossing out "word-sounds". The reason: "Mumbo" is being made up on the spot. ( More than half the cuts on Wild Life are first takes, by the way.)



The lyrics may be silly at best but "Bip Bop" is a hypnotic bit of backwater boogie. The song infuriated critics. George Harrison is reported to have cried out "C'mon Paul! We know you can do better than that!" But in a re-evaluation in which they named Wild Life one the greatest albums of all time, Mojo Magazine called the song "absurdly hypnotic".



Now we're getting in some trouble. This reggae-treated Mickey and Sylvia cover was originally going to be the single. That didn't happen.( Phew!) In fact Paul simply doesn't talk about this album. Referring to Wild Life, Linda simply said: "We could have done it better."



The nearly 7 minute title cut ends side one. Linda's backing vox sound multi-tracked. I believe we may be entering new ground for McCartney: "filler". That said, I assume I'll be hearing from some fans who will tell me  that this is their fave cut. McCartney dug out "Wild Life" on tour every so often.

SIDE TWO

Side Two offers some love songs beginning with "Some People Never Know". Judging by the number of covers one can find on YouTube, I guess this a fan favorite. It's probably for Linda.



God bless Linda. Paul's soul mate has to sing some solo lines on a cut that sounds like a 1963 Beatles throw-away. But what do you know? A Hit Parader critic called this the best song on the album. And I'm sure a few readers will say this is their fave.

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One of Paul's most overlooked gems. Mojo Magazine says "Tomorrow" could have had a place in the Abbey Road medley. I believe this cut got the most radio plays when the album originally came out.



"Dear Friend" is seen as an attempt at reconciliation with John. After the break up Paul struck in song with the Ram cut "Too Many People" ("that was your first mistake/you took your lucky break and broke it into two") Lennon retorted in "How Do You Sleep?" ("The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you're gone you're just another day") In "Dear Friend" Paul is offering the peace pipe.



The first CD version offers three non-LP cuts including "Oh Woman Oh Why", the B side to the previously mentioned "Another Day". This isn't a Wings cut. McCartney plays all the instruments. That's why it really should be an extra cut on Ram ( which is this writer's fave Macca album).


Following the backlash, McCartney hired ex Spooky Tooth guitarist Henry McCullough and toured UK college towns where they played impromptu concerts. Then he did some other stuff.

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Deep Cuts: The Kinks - Oklahoma U.S.A.

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  When asked what was his favorite Kinks album, Ray Davies liked to reply the most recent one...and Muswell Hillbillies.

   The band's ninth album celebrates the North London neighborhood where the Davies brothers grew up.
 Stereo Review magazine called the poor-selling record "album of the year" in 1972 ( even though it was released on November 24, 1971). The best known cuts include the concert fave and single "20th Century Man", "Complicated Life" ( life is overrated/ life is complicated) and "Have a Cuppa Tea" which, like most cuts on the album, sounds like a music hall number. You can picture the lads on the cover all joining in on the chorus.

  Our deep cut is the tenth track It's a quiet number that remembers the effect of the big American films played at the local Muswell theatres.The song is about the dreams of a working girl ( if life's for livin', what's livin' for) who fantasizes about trading her dreary existence for something in brilliant Cinemascope: ( But in her dreams she is far away/ In Oklahoma USA/ With Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRea.)

   Yo La Tengo covered "Oklahoma U.S.A." on their 1991 album Fakebook.

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Face It: A Nod Is As Good As A Wink... Turns 40 Today

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With the release of A Nod Is As Good As A Wink ... the Faces, with (Rod) Stewart singing lead, have three albums out, each of them duller than the one that preceded it, and with the first one having been none too great to begin with.
-- Jon Landau, Rolling Stone Magazine (1972)

1971 is one hell of a year for Rod Stewart and a pretty memorable one for Faces. In February Faces releases Long Player. The opening track "Bad "n" Ruin" contains all the DNA necessary for The Black Crowes to thrive for 20+ years. Three months later Rod launches one of the very best albums of the year , Every Picture Tells A Story,  which tops the charts thanks to "Maggie May" and the Temptations cover "(I Know) I'm Losing You" recorded with the entire Faces band. Now with 1971 winding down, Faces releases A Nod is as Good as a Wink... which contains their biggest hit "Stay With Me" and several memorable Ronnie Lane tunes.

The album also contains the poster above. Look closely for pictures of pills and naked groupies.I assume lawyers quickly suggest the record company re-issue the album in 1972 without this collage/ homage to the rock n roll lifestyle.

Side One



The album kicks off with the raunchy and rollicking Ronnie Wood riff on "Miss Judy's Farm"...apparently located just across the river from Maggie's Farm.
I dig the Ian McLagen organ lines but Rolling Stone critic Jon Landau calls the song a "dog...and what started off sounding funky now just sounds like rock band hacking".



Next comes "You're So Rude", another highlight and the B-Side to "Stay With Me". Lyrically, Lane's tune is a much funnier version of Rod's future #1 hit "Tonight's the Night", except that this seduction takes place while the family is out visiting Auntie Renee. If you haven't explored Ronnie's solo albums you're missing out.



"Love Lives Here" is pretty pleasant and bleak but breaks no new ground.



"Last Orders Please" is one of those shuffling Ronnie Lane tunes we'd be hearing a lot of in his solo career and with Slim Chance. Ronnie would be taking more of a lead role in Faces as Rod became distracted by his fame but only for one more album, Ooh La La.

SIDE TWO



Faces's biggest hit, "Stay With Me", peaked at #6 in the UK and #17 in the US. The song could be part 2 of the tale of Maggie May's young Lothario. At least in this song of a one-night stand with a groupie, Rod caught her name, "Rita" ( as opposed to Lynyrd Skynyrd's tryst in Boise, Idaho). Last year Rod told an interviewer he actually never had sex with a groupie and hardly ever had one night stands.




To anyone who has grown up with a dad, this song really hits home. Fathers can begin as heroes and wind up friends. Along the way they become real people. My father was my best man at my wedding. Ronnie's own father took his teen age son to a music store where they met an employee named Steve Marriot.



Landau's favourite track from Nod is this Chuck Berry cover: "It is only here that the band creates a fully satisfying groove," he writes. " and sustains it for any length of time." This live version doesn't really do the recorded version justice. But you can see that , live, Rod is already more than just a front man and the Faces already seem to be relegated as background players. The end is nigh.




"Too Bad" is another Faces rocker that, despite strong performances, doesn't stand out to these ears.



Ronnie Wood plays bottleneck guitar on the final track. Robert Christgau says it's a song about a brother becoming a hippie, but there could be any number of reasons the brother shows up one night at the door all but unrecognizable with eyes that are getting muddy.

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Odd And Sods: Serge Gainsbourg "En Melody"

Revealing Rock's Oddest Songs...





The sexy and seductive --or is it seedy and vulgar? -- 1971 concept album Histoire De Melody Nelson tells the tale of a doomed love affair between a dirty old man ( the French chain-smoking pop maestro Serge Gainsbourg as himself)  and an English school girl ( His lover, the actress Jane Birkin).

"En Melody" is a funky instrumental guaranteed to make you smile. That's because the sweet Lolita on the album cover,  Birkin, giggles, laughs and squeals throughout the three and a half minute track. Sounds like quite the hotel room romp but in fact Jane's brother was tickling her.

The album never did become a commercial success but its influence can be heard on artists like Beck and Air. When Gainsbourg died, Jane placed the monkey from the album cover in his coffin.

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Celebrating 40th Anniversary of Led Zeppelin IV

32 Million Copies sold and counting...

Has any album remained more mysterious than Led Zeppelin's  ?

Consider the album cover alone. As Jimmy Page told NME.com "Almost 40 years after the album came out, nobody knows the old man featured on the cover, nor the artist who painted him. That sort of sums up what we wanted to achieve with the album cover, which has remained both anonymous and enigmatic at the same time." and if the cover's an enigma, how about the name, 

Four symbols, The Fourth Album, The Runes, The Hermit, Untitled or ZOSO,?

In his 33 1/3 book, Erik Davis suggests the four symbols are Earth, Air , Fire and Water.
But they may just be the Discs, Swords, Wands and Cups of Tarot cards.
There are four guys in the band
Four songs on each side
And it's Led Zeppelin's fourth album

TRACK BY TRACK


SIDE ONE



Driven by a bass riff developed by John Paul Jones, "Black Dog" is the first track and first single. Robert Plant says the lyrics are a basic sexual come-on, but many Led Zep fans believe the song pays tribute to the black dog with red eyes that led Jimmy Page down a mountainside to make a deal with the devil.



Another riff-driven single that came out of an in-studio jam as the band was recording "Four Sticks". Ian Stewart of The Rolling Stones joins the band on keyboards but this song belongs to John Bonham and his incredible drumming.



An epic acoustic duet featuring Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention. The lyrics, possibly based on Tolkein's Lord of the Rings apparently are a bit of an embarrassment to Plant. "If it suffered from naivete and tweetness-- I was only 23--it makes up for it in the cohesion of the voices and the playing". On their 2008 tour to promote Raising Sands, Allison Krause sang the Sandy Denny parts.






Probably the most played song on the radio, (and not just because the DJ needed to take a dump) "Stairway to Heaven" has that soft acoustic beginning and hard rock ending that inspired bands like Aerosmith, Guns N Roses and Metallica to come up with their own dynamic epics. The song is made up of bits of guitar pieces Page had come up with and a great deal of lyrics Plant wrote spontaneously.

The opening riff appears to have been borrowed from Spirit's "Taurus".



But then, Led Zep did a lot of borrowing in their day.
There's also the allegations of a backwards message praising "Sad Satan".
Listen for yourself




SIDE TWO



When Robert Plant says of Led Zeppelin IV, "if the feel was good and it was a little bit out of tune, flat or sharp, it didn't matter. We'd keep it just for the feel", he may have been talking about "Misty Mountain Hop". There's a subtle point at 2:11 in the song when the band loses the groove and a few flat notes, but the song rocks. Fans seems to believe it's a bout a love-in broken up by cops.



Named "Four Sticks" because drummer John Bonham played on it with four drumsticks, this tune has been described as "abstract" by Jimmy Page. It certainly adds to the myth of "Four" surrounding the album.

Plant and Page re-recorded the song in India in 1972. It's a bit of a mess but here you go:





Yet another song inspired by Joni Mitchell. ("To find a queen without a king/ They say she plays guitar and cries and sings") Earlier that year Joni had released Blue which featured a song called "California". In a recent introduction Plant said it was written in an "extreme hippie period about the new hope in California and the new world that was being born with the youth generation".



For the fat drum sound, two mikes were dangled three stories above a stairwell in which Bonham played the drums. The recording was then slowed down for the big thick sound. A cover of an old blues number about the Great Mississippi Flood, the song achieves some of its power from Page's studio magic. There's panning, flanging, backwards echo, and backwards harmonica ( as played by Plant).

I'll give the final word on the album  to the dean, Robert Christgau: As always, the band's medievalisms have their limits, but this is the definitive Led Zeppelin and hence heavy metal album. It proves that both are--or can be--very much a part of "Rock and Roll.

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40 Years Ago Today: Elton John's Madman Across the Water released

Though, commercially,  it was one of the least successful of Elton John's albums in the UK, Madman Across the Water ( released November 5, 1971) stayed in the US charts for nearly a year. That's despite having no major hit singles. Still, Madman remains , next to 1970's Tumbleweed Connection, 1001Songs's all time favorite Elton John album. One of five Elton recorded in an 18 month period, Madman is an album you can relax around. Most of the cuts top five minutes and eventually become good, solid friends.



It begins with one of Elton John's greatest songs, written about lyricist Bernie Taupin's first wife. To this day Taupin says Madman Across the Water reminds him of driving down LA freeways listening to the car radio. No, Elton isn't asking Tony Danza to hold him closer. In 1971, Danza was still an unknown college student  at The University of Dubuque.



Named after Band drummer Levon Helm, "Levon" hit #24 in the US charts. There are live cuts available on YouTube but you lose the orchestration which takes this song ( which seems to be about father/ son relationships) to an extraordinary level.



"Razor Face" is the third cut. Another character sketch, Razor Face sounds like a rough looking dude with a drinking problem and a good heart. Rick Wakeman plays keyboards on the album track.



The title cut is another classic song. Taupin has said this is his most misunderstood lyric. Many people suggested it was about the troubled President Richard Nixon. Taupin has refused to explain the lyrics further. Good for him. Madmen were big topics in the early 70's among John/Taupin contemporaries David Bowie, James Taylor and Alice Cooper. That's Chris Spedding with the repetitive electric guitar line. And Paul Buckmaster with the string arrangements. (Buckmaster orchestrated strings for The Bee Gees Odessa and Bowie's "Space Oddity")



"Indian Sunset" is sung from the point of view of a young Indian warrior who sees his race, culture and art facing extinction.



Elton's contribution to the rock'n'roll road song. He explains the track better than I could at the beginning of the video clip above.



A man who's seen hard time in prison works the peach orchards of South Carolina and Georgia. Another character study that reveals Taupin's tremendous gift.



Things get proggy on "All The Nasties" with the addition of the Cantores em Ecclesia Choir. Elton has said the song is a reaction to all the nasty critics out there. This might have given the critics some extra fuel.



Madman ends with the beautiful, sad and brief "Goodbye". As with "Levon", are we getting another reference to Jesus with the lyrics about wine flowing into the land to feed his lambs?

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Deep Cuts: Badfinger - Perfection (1971)

Highlighting a lesser known track from a classic album

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Badfinger's third album, Straight Up, produced two Top 20 singles in the U.S. The group's highest charting single ever, "Day After Day", peaked at #4 while "Baby Blue" peaked at #14. The album also featured the radio-friendly 1001Songs favorite "I'd Die Babe".

But this post is about deep cuts, so we're featuring Track #11 "Perfection". In light of songwriter Pete Ham's suicide four years later, it is interesting to hear his thoughts on this gem:"Well it basically says that I think people have to -- before they try do anything about the world--  admit that they've got a lot of faults themselves. Admit that there is no real perfection. People get too obsessed with ideals. The perfect world or the perfect human being and there's no such thing. So all basically that song says is realize our imperfections and talk about them and then try and do something about it".

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Odds And Sods: I'd Swear There Was Somebody Here, 1971

David Crosby and his Dad

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The recording of David Crosby's brilliant solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name, was haunted by the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton in a 1969 traffic accident. No cut was more eerie--or more haunted-- than the multi-tracked a capella number that closed the record. Producer Stephen Barncard said it was late at night when Croz started "dicking around with the echo."

He recorded Crosby singing with two tracks each pass. 5 passes in all. No overdubs. No retakes at all.

"15 minutes of cosmic skydrop. " Barncard called it. "I had never seen the Muse work so magically."

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#38 The Dramatics - Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get, 1971

It's true. I lent The Dramatics every formal prom tuxedo I ever rented for their Soul Train appearance. OK. Maybe it's not true.
In the early-70's the R&B world seemed tickled by the sounds of the Caribbean. The promises of good times in the sunshine proved irrestible to AM radio.
The Bahamian pop band Beginning of the End gave us the #15 hit "Funky Nassau" in 1971. Johnny Nash took "I Can See Clearly Now" to #1 in 1972 and introduced a lot of people to the reggae music of Bob Marley with his #12 hit cover of "Stir It Up".
In 1971, after nearly ten years without a hit, the long suffering Detroit vocal group, The Dramatics, combined that sunshine vibe with some fuzztone guitar and a killer horn section for song #38 of 1001.
"Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the R&B charts. The band would hit even bigger in 1972 with their dramatic single "In The Rain", which topped the R&B charts for four weeks and hit #5 in the pop charts. Personnel changes and legal quarrels soon followed but for one glorious year The Dramatics ruled the R&B roost.

By the way, I am a contributing blogger to Star Maker Machine. This week's topic: Drums. Thought you'd might like to see what I picked.

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#32 Flamin' Groovies Yesterday's Numbers 1971

In 1971, The Rolling Stones hit the UK Charts with three great Stonesy hits "Brown Sugar", "Wild Horses" and a re-issue of "Street Fighting Man".
The album Sticky Fingers featured more great riffs in "Bitch" and the epic "Can't You Hear Me Knocking". And yet, it could be argued, the tune with the greatest Stonesy feel of 1971 didn't come from The Rolling Stones at all.
Rock critic Greg Shaw recalls the sessions for The third Flamin' Groovies album Teenage Head as a non stop party. Not one of the San Francisco-based Groovies ever truly mastered their instrument. Not one of them could sing. They were raw garage rockers who, in the right moment, were capable of recording classics like this, and years later, "Shake Some Action".

When Teenage Head failed to get them ahead, co founder/singer Roy Loney left the band. Guitarist Cyril Jordan moved the Groovies to England where Shake Some Action (1976) is said to have inspired the burgeoning punk movement. Listen for yourself:







By the way, "Yesterday's Numbers" closes with the line "All's well that end's well", the name of a Shakespeare play that heralded a string of great works. It was followed in order by Othello, Hamlet and Twelth Night.

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40 Years of WHAT'S GOING ON

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6 Songs with Alan White #3, "Imagine" 1971

"Imagine" has long been considered the greatest peace anthem in rock history, but how many fans realize John Lennon is "imagining" a utopia full of atheists and anarchists? Lennon has called "Imagine" "Working Class Hero" with sugar on it for conservatives. Future Yes drummer Alan White, now a dedicated member of the Plastic Ono Band, can be seen in the above clip hearing Lennon play "Imagine" for the first time. He tells 1001Songs the story behind Imagine


Actually John just sat down and played it on the piano and sang it for everybody. And everybody was just, you know, amazed. Just such a fantastic song with so much meaning--words that still mean so much today.

"Imagine" has one of the simplest kinds of drum rhythms and it's a very simple song but I learned a kind of lesson from that.
It's not really what you play but how you play it and the feeling behind it. Sometimes that makes it what it is and that's what "Imagine" was all about because we only did three takes and then we did backing tracks. And after the third take we all looked at each other and said I guess that was it. everybody in the room knew that was the take for the song.
1001Songs: What was the feeling in the room?
Oh it was one of quietness and looking around and John said "Wonderful."

Alan played drums on six of the Imagine album tracks, among them "Oh Yoko" and "How do You Sleep?", a scathing reply to Paul's "Too Many People" and other perceived sleights, featuring George Harrison on slide guitar.



John gave us all a sheet with the words to "Imagine" and all the songs to the album Imagine and he said "If there's any song you don't feel like you want to play on because of what it's saying, let me know and they were all fantastic so I just played on a bunch of stuff on the album and loved every moment of it.

I didn't realize at the time that I was kind of a part of history. I was just in the studio making another album kind of thing.


This would be Alan's last session with Lennon but he recalls all his Plastic Ono Band recordings with fondness.

Whenever I started doing anything with the band, he used to say "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!"
He was just really nice to me, always like a person who took me under his wing and he'd say "This is my little drummer."


Tomorrow: George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord"

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