40 Year Itch : Snowblind

[Buy Vol 4 for $4.99]

"Yeah, the cocaine had set in. We went out to L.A. and got into a totally different lifestyle. Half the budget went on the coke and the other half went to seeing how long we could stay in the studio... We rented a house in Bel-Air and the debauchery up there was just unbelievable."-Geezer Butler, bassist, Guitar World, 2001

      After three years on the road, the members of Black Sabbath needed a break so they rented a mansion in Bel-Air and set about snorting mounds and mounds of cocaine. Cocaine has become such a central part of their lives, they decided to name their fourth album Snowblind. That is, until their US label Warner Brothers said no. Still, if you listen to the album Ozzy Osbourne promises you will hear all kinds of references to cocaine.

"The album cost around $65,000 to make and we'd spent $75,000 on coke"-Geezer Butler

 "If you listen to the track 'Snowblind' itself you can hear the word 'cocaine' being whispered in those quite bits." Ozzy told Mojo Magazine. " don't know why they didn't object to that. Maybe they didn't bother listening to it."

 


Maybe not. But Vol 4 was Sabbath's fourth straight album to sell a million copies in the US. It was also another nail in the coffin for the band...as excess drove a wedge between band members.In another seven years, Black Sabbath would be history.

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40 Year Itch: Sandy

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"Sandy (was) my favourite singer of all the British girls that ever were" -Robert Plant

 The most curious thing about this beautiful album is why it didn't make Sandy Denny a star, especially as it came on the heels of start making singer-songwriter debuts from the likes of Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and Carole King. The first reason may be that it took Sandy Denny too long to get around to making Sandy, which came out in September of 1972. Nearly three years after she left Fairport Convention. Along the way, there was Fotheringay, another British folk band she fronted. Duller than Fairport, they broke up after one album. Then there was her first solo album The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens. An Uneven effort. There was her guest vocal appearance on Led Zeppelin's "Battle Of Evermore" and her appearance on the orchestral version of the rock opera Tommy. Melody Maker readers were patient. The voted her Best British Female Singer in 1970 and 1971.

Their patience was rewarded with Sandy. And, going against the grain, I'll say the reason this album didn't sell is the choice of the very pretty "Listen, Listen" as the single. Yes I know it was chosen as single of the week by Radio One DJ Tony Blackburn. But the B-side, a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow Is a Long Time", would have introduced Sandy to a far wider audience than the British folkies who already worshiped her. New fans, who already knew Rod Stewart's cover on Every Picture Tells A Story, would have perked up, especially in the US. It would have also anticipated the country/pop crossover singles of Linda Ronstadt and Donna Fargo.




      That said, my favorite song is "For Nobody To Hear", with its Allen Toussaint horn arrangement. The entire album benefits from Sandy's dreamy vocals and Richard Thompson's understated guitar lines. They make a good team.  By 1974, Sandy was back with Fairport Convention. She died in 1978 after a few years troubled by substance abuse, a broken marriage and some unfortunate falls.

 

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40 Year Itch: Mary Had A Little Lamb

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Depending on which Paul McCartney you believe, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was either a smart-ass response to the BBC's banning his "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" or a sincere attempt to write a children's song ( as The Beatles had with "Yellow Submarine" and "All Together Now") In any case it remains one of the most annoying songs Macca ever recorded.

 THE FLIP WILSON SHOW JUNE 1972


 The song peaked at #9 on the UK charts while in America, radio stations preferred to play the B-Side "Little Woman Love". Thank God!

Both can be found on Wildlife.


 FRENCH TV SEPTEMBER 24, 1972

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40 Year Itch: Save The Children

Some time between Save The Planet and Save The Whales, Jesse Jackson and his civil rights organization Operation PUSH ( People United To Serve Humanity)decided to save the children. The September 1972 concert event, named after one of Marvin Gaye's songs on his classic 1971 album What's Going On, featured a who's who of the year's biggest jazz and rhythm and blues performers: Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Bill Withers, Roberta Flack, Quincy Jones and of course The Jackson 5 who performed Michael's most recent hit "I Wanna Be Where You Are" as well as a medley of their greatest hits.

 

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40 Year Itch : 1972 in Soundtracks Part 2

A continuation of Tuesday's post celebrating the best soundtracks of 1972.

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With its depiction of man-raping hillbillies, the 1972 thriller Deliverance didn't do the Deep South any favors. There are people in Rabun County Georgia still hurting from the movie 40 years later. On the other hand, bluegrass music got a nice shot in the arm...even if the soundtrack's most famous tune was recorded without permission. Had it not been for Roberta Flack, raised within half a day's drive from the Northeast corner of Georgia in Black Mountain, NC "Dueling Banjos" would have hit #1 in 1973.












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Ennio Morricone composed the soundtracks for more famous spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More,  and of course The Good The Bad and The Ugly) but his masterpiece may very well have been Giu La Testa ( which roughly translates into "Duck Your Head" or "Duck, You Sucker!" or "A Fistful of Dynamite").

Before a lush orchestra you'll hear a whistler, a chant of "Sean Sean Sean" and then the heartbreaking soprano of Edda Dell'Orso who sang on a number of Morricone soundtracks. The movie may be uneven but the soundtrack is hypnotizing.


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There are other soundtracks to Cabaret (most notably the original Broadway cast recording from 1966 with Joel Grey as Emcee and the 1998 revival with Alan Cummings)  but if you've got the 40 year itch you've got to have the one with Liza Minnelli. Directed by Bob Fosse, she won an Oscar for her performance as Sally Bowles.

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40 Year Itch : 1972 in Soundtracks Part 1

1972 was a monster year in film and movie soundtracks. Just look at some of the movies that came out that year: The Godfather,  Deliverance, Cabaret, Solaris and Aguirre Wrath of God. Porn went mainstream with both Deep Throat and Behind The Green Door among the top ten grossing films. 1972 also saw the best of the blaxploitation soundtracks Superfly as well as Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man and Bobby Womack's Across 110th Street. And who can forget The Harder They Come ? Here are some of 1972's most memorable soundtracks.

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   It says a lot about the power of a film that after just 137 minutes nobody will hear Beethoven's most famous symphony in the same way.
   Though the movie came out in 1971, the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange wasn't released until 1972. Along with some straight,  though mostly truncated,  orchestral performances of classical numbers like various movements from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Rossini's "William Tell Overture", there are the standout synthesizer performances by Walter "Switched-On_Bach" Carlos ( She would undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1972 and become Wendy Carlos). All of the music --even "Gene Kelly's "Singin In The Rain" --will forever be haunted by the brutal imagery of the film.
    Check out the opening track :  Carlos's performance of Henry Purcell's "Music For The Funeral for Queen Mary". Listen closely and you can hear the sounds that inspired the entire Goth music movement.


 

Wendy Carlos also did the soundtrack music to Kubrick's The Shining.

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Roam the halls of the dark, well guarded Coreleone family mansion in this soundtrack by the great Italian composer Nino Rota ( who did the soundtrack work on all The Godfather movies as well as films by Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti) The American Film Institute ranks The Godfather #5 on their list of  all time great film scores. As with most film scores, you're going to hear a theme repeated over and over.
"The Halls Of Fear" is as dark as it gets. I would say if you have bad news to give at an office meeting, it might really set the stage by playing this first. I'll try it this week and let you know.

 

The love theme, "Speak Softly Love" was covered by all kinds of artists. Andy Williams had the big hit but I prefer this reggae version by Ken Boothe (  But then I seem to prefer Ken Boothe's reggae versions of just about everything).

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Improvisation. That's what Marlon Brando was doing throughout the sexually charged, originally X-Rated story of an American widower and his attempt to have an anonymous affair with a younger woman. ( Actually Brando was reading cue cards placed all over the set...including the ceiling). But in any case, improvisation is part of what jazz is all about and Argentine sax player Gato Barbieri does with the main theme, now a jazz standard. At once sexy sunny and cheesy, the Last Tango In Paris soundtrack deserves its place among 1972's best soundtracks.




Look for more soundtracks from 1972 later this week.

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40 Year Itch: Ray Charles Gets Political

1972 was an interesting year for Ray Charles. He was profiled in a New Musical Express article with the headlines "The Man Who Beat Drug Addiction And Blindness To Become A Legend". He recorded "America The Beautiful" and met with President Richard Nixon. But also, following the lead of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, Ray got political with the funky Quincy Jones produced single "Hey Mister". Written as a letter to a Congressman, Ray points out "we're the richest country in the world and I just can't understand why we got so many hungry people."

Hey legislation why don't you try a new route

Listen to the people and hear what they're talking about

You see the poor people know they can't impeach you 

They just hoping that they cries will reach you

The song peaked at #47 on the R and B charts. On shows like Dick Cavett, Carol Burnett and even Bill Cosby, Ray performed his standard hits like the five year old "Eleanor Rigby" cover. Both "Hey Mister" and "America The Beautiful" can be found on the album Message From The People, which also features a minor hit in "Look What They've Done To My Song Ma" and opens with a stirring version of the black national anthem "Lift Every Voice And Sing".

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