40 Year Itch Roxy Music In Concert

On September 16, the BBC broadcast a Roxy Music concert the Paris Theatre in London  featuring, in order, the songs "The Bob (Medley)", "The Bogus Man Pt 2", "Sea Breezes", "Virginia Plain"( a new single released a month earlier that would peak at #4), "Chance Meeting" and "Re-Make/Re-Model". "Whispering Bob" Harris is the announcer between each track.

Enjoy!

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40 Year Itch: Rocky Mountain High

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True story. My dad and stepmother were friends with John Denver. I grew up with Rocky Mountain High so it is with some self-enforced detachment that I have to say this is probably not his best album. I'd give the nod to 1971's Poems, Prayers and Promises.

Rocky Mountain High, released September 15, 1972, was Denver's first Top Ten album. And though it contains the title track,  a Top Ten hit that has become his most famous song and one of the state songs of Colorado, there isn't much else to recommend. "Goodbye Again" is a re-write of "Leaving On a Jet Plane" and the Season Suite just doesn't do much for me.

That said, I thought this might be a great place to share my dad's 1974 letter to Denver, shortly after we all saw him at the New Haven Coliseum. My stepmother went backstage that year. We'd gone the year before and saw the ping pong table Denver liked to play on ...to relax before a show. There was the smell of herb in the air and a whole lot of cheers every time Denver shouted "Far Out!"

Anyway, here's the letter

Dear John: Your concert in New Haven was stupendous! My God, when you came on stage that first moment and the Coliseum roared...it must be an extraordinary sensation, rather frightening, rather pleasing, rather contemptible even. I mean how is it possible not to react with something approaching scorn at the animal that gets unleashed. There is that crowd aura, that same frenzied grip that politicians strive for, that Hitler achieved ( he, too, had at Nuremberg that astonishingly staged and managed show which created a crowd frenzy). I don't mean to compare you to Hitler, my friend, all I mean is you have achieved that same quality of having crowds react to you but that, unlike Hitler, of course you deserve it.



John Denver visiting us in 1967.

You gave the impression of being perfectly at ease, in control and professional all of which you are, but it came across. And I think your music--that is, the songs you write, are getting more and more beautiful and lyrical. I think "Sunshine on My Shoulder" (sic) is one of the loveliest songs I've heard in years. Very simple, very true like all good writing must be. And "Goodbye Again" is lovely too. Of course "Rocky Mountain High"--the title suddenly for the first time struck me as perfect for a high school in Denver. Wonderful idea, the little girl saying "I'm at Rocky Mountain High" and the other responding "I'll say..."--anyway , Rocky Mountain High is such a pleasing song and a nice thought.




I remember once being on acid at Vale (sic) and suddenly thinking I'd been dropped into a Nazi pre World War II training camp, getting nervous about it, knowing I was on acid, thinking if only I could piss it out of me I'd be all right. But every time I'd head for the can, I'd have to pass the wooden beamed staircase and all the ski boots clomping up and down would make me think I'd fallen into Gestapo Headquarters and I'd flee in a panic for the outside, terrified that someone would speak to me and find out I couldn't speak German. Which, of course, 50% of the people around me were speaking. It was German week or something. It was funny in retrospect and scary at the time.

Still, back to the concert, the children loved it. Little Amanda bobbed up and down, boogaloo'd, my 9 year old daughter, Lansing, ( who somehow managed to pass the word to her school that you were spending the weekend with us) is starstruck, smarmy with love for you and my 10 year old son thinks you sing okay.

 Thank you for your kindness and especially for calling. As the man who led Sam back out to meet us said, "He's a star now." You earned it.
 Affectionately,
 Courty

I think Denver sings better than ok. And he could really play the guitar. I wish he'd recorded an album by himself. Just his voice and his guitar the way Johnny Cash did. We might be remembering him in a different way now.

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All Time Top 10 : Les Nemes of Haircut 100

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Bass Player Les Nemes of British popsters Haircut One Hundred ( "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl), "Love Plus One") gave this list to Smash Hits Magazine at about the time they were scoring their 4th Top 10 UK hit in a row "Nobody's Fool". You can hear that Caribbean flavor Haircut 100 adopted from the Hi Tension track. The list comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened.

 

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40 Year Itch : A Moment's Answer To The Dream

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When I was writing "Close to the Edge" With Steve (Howe), I was reading a lot about spirituality and how it stretches across the entire world. There's a connection, like all rivers lead to the same ocean, so I thought, you know, "close to the edge, down by the river". And it's like people say "Close to the Edge" is about  disaster, but no , it's about realization! We're on this journey and the only reason we live is to find the divine. To find God from within 

   -Jon Anderson

interviewed by Sea Of Tranquility

   As previously stated just this week,  there was a time when people would set the needle down and really listen to side long symphonic rock tracks like "Close to the Edge" . To me it  sounds for the first few minutes like every idea these stellar musicians ever had got tossed into a blender. Ah! But that's just one half of one movement. Things get funky, then ethereal, then churchy and then the whole thing drives down the autobahn in a tank before crashing into a tree full of birds.

    "For You And I" is lovely. The second of its four movements, "Eclipse" was released as a single in the US and just missed cracking the Top 40. Finally there's 9 minutes of the vigorous "Siberian Khatru". I listen in awe to the bass lines of Chris Squire. ( But sometimes I get the feeling that's the whole point of Yes: "Be in awe of  us!").

This would be the last album to feature Bruford who quit Yes to join King Crimson just days before a US tour. Enter Alan White to the rescue ( see interview) who had to learn how to play these oddly tempo'd tunes. Yes would spend years trying to top Close To The Edge. The band has their moments but this, The Yes Album and Fragile are still the highlights in my opinion.

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40 Year Itch: Long Live Rock 1972 ( Part 2)

                                                  DONNY HATHAWAY LIVE

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No it's not rock but this 1972 soul release from Donny Hathaway is my favorite live album of 1972.    Recorded live at The Troubador in Hollywood and at the Bitter End in New York, Hathaway and his band ( which includes bassist Willie Weeks) find the groove every single time and on tracks from Hathaway's 1970 solo debut, Everything Is Everything, stretch out. "The Ghetto" runs more than 12 minutes. "Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)" runs nearly 14 minutes...including a remarkably funky three minute bass solo from Weeks. In the blogosphere , it's Hathaway's version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" that has turned audiences onto Donny Hathway Live but the entire album is great.


 
                                             
THE SHOCKING BLUE LIVE IN JAPAN


At the height of their popularity the Dutch band Shocking Blue were knocking out three albums a year as well as touring the world. Live In Japan finds the band doing a pretty decent job of overcoming sleep deprivation and jet lag. As fans will already know "Hot Sand" was the B-Side to "Venus" which, for some reason, gets played twice on the album. Good stuff but Attila, released in November of 1972,  would contain a most amazing single: "Rock In The Sea".

 

                                                            SLADE ALIVE!


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Though packed with cover versions from the likes of Lovin' Spoonful, Ten Years After and Steppenwolf, Slade's live album Alive! sold big numbers peaking at #1 in Australia and #2 in the UK. The album rocks all the way through and is meant to be played loudly and often. Plus there is a true "punk rock" moment halfway through "Darling Be Home Soon" when singer Noddy Holder belches into the microphone. You put something like that on a record and teenage boys will help launch your career into the stratosphere! The 2006 version has 33 tracks.


 

                                             THE BAND ROCK OF AGES

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On the last four nights of 1971, The Band booked the Academy of Music in NYC and played their ever loving asses off with a horn section arranged by New Orleans maestro Allen Toussaint. The result is a classic album that had only gotten better with age...in part because we keep getting more music. The most recent incarnation of Rock of Ages is two CDs , 45 minutes longer than the original two disc set, including four songs with Bob Dylan. So sometimes the horns are overbearing. This is still a better live document of The Band at its best than The Last Waltz.


 

Yeah, we'll deal with Full House, Made In Japan and a few others in the weeks and months to come.

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40 Year Itch Long Live Rock 1972 ( Part 1 )

In this era of 140 character Twitter messages, on-demand television and internet porn, it may be hard to believe people used to sit back in chairs, pop a beer can and listen to an entire albums filled with nothing but long-haired musicians jamming live to appreciative crowds. The live "Head Album", so called because in addition to beer you'd probably be feeding your head, probably peaked in 1972.

Here are few notable examples.

                            COSMIC TRAVELERS LIVE AT THE SPRING CRATER FESTIVAL

 Recorded by former Paul Revere and the Raiders guitarist Drake Levin ( who also played on Ananka Shankar's trippy 1970 eponymous album and with Emitt Rhodes)and LA session musicians before a crowd of 55,000, this acid rock ult fave was limited to 1000 copies in 1972. The Gear Fab label is releasing the album on CD in February of 2013. Listen to the entire album below. Turn on the lava lamp and listen to the entire album below.

 

                                     CARLOS SANTANA AND BUDDY MILES!LIVE!


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 Clearly Carlos Santana is doing Buddy Miles a "solid" by appearing on this one time live album recorded in Hawaii. It sold a million copies and even went Top Ten. the album starts off promisingly enough with a cover of John Mclaughlin's "Marbles" and Buddy's "Lava". Then comes a version of "Evil Ways" that starts off groovy before jazz saxophonist Hadley Caliman begins blowing weird atonal notes halfway in. There's also a sidelong jam called "Free Form Funkafide Filth" that goes nowhere and then , 17 minutes in, has the musical balls to pull of a "false ending" before going for seven minutes more. Can't imagine listening to this one all the way through more than once.

 

FRUMPY LIVE

[Purchase a used copy for $389]

Popular German prog rockers Frumpy, led by the mesmerizing vocalist Inga Rumpf, recorded a double live album of soulful hard rock with some of the best organ playing this side of Deep Purple. Unfortunately Frumpy Live came out after the band had broken up. After the break-up three members of the band, including Inga,  formed Atlantis which eventually supported both Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd on tour. Despite limited US success, Inga is still gigging around German. Heil Inga!

 

                                            JOHN MAYALL JAZZ BLUES FUSION


[Purchase for $5.99]

Well, Dean of all Rock Critics Robert Christgau wasn't impressed. "Old blues guys plus old jazz guys? I always though fusion was something new" he wrote in his C- review. No, it's not really something new. But Brit John Mayall cooks on his harmonica and interweaves solos with Stanley Turrentine's favorite trumpeter Blue Mitchell and sax player Clifford Solomon while Freddy Robinson lays clean jazz-blues lines. No wonder for some Mayall fans, this one stands out as the favorite.


 

TOMORROW: Live albums from rock and soul acts like Donny Hathaway, Slade, The Band  and Shocking Blue

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40 Year Itch: Surrender To The Rhythm

[Purchase as a double CD with New Favourites]

It's refreshing to know that as the 1970's introduced an era of side-long progressive rock symphonies and  self pitying singer songwriters, there were still bands that just wanted to make feel good three minute rock'n'roll songs about girls, girlfriends and ex girlfriends. In the UK, Brinsley Schwarz was arguably the best of the pub rockers. Led by Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwarz, the band's second 1972 studio album Nervous On The Road didn't make much of an impact on the charts but its 40 minutes of country-flavored rock earned the band a UK tour opening for Paul McCartney and Wings.

After a sixth album that would be produced by Dave Edmunds and feature "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love And Understanding", the members of Brinsley Schwarz would play a big role in the New Wave movement. Nick Lowe scored some solo hits ("I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass", "Cruel To Be Kind") and produced Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and The Damned among others. Ian Gomm hit the Top 20 in 1979 with "Hold On". Brinsley Schwarz and Bob Andrews joined former Brinsley Schwarz roadie Martin Belmont and  recorded as The Rumour with and without Graham Parker.

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