40 Year Itch: Henry, The Hobo and 3 Friends

These are three albums released in April I failed to mention for one reason or another.

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Ex-Fairport Convention  Richard Thompson's first solo album has the distinction of being the poorest selling album in the Warner Brothers catalog. But if you judged album quality on sales you wouldn't be reading 1001Songs. Henry the Human Fly reveals all the witty playfulness and intelligence that would be the cornerstone of the 40 year career that followed.

 [Purchase]

Best known for the the Top 40 hit "City of New Orleans", Hobo's Lullaby also offers an entertaining mix of originals ("Days Are Short" features some fine Ry Cooder lines) and covers from Dylan ("When The Ship Comes In") Arlo's Dad ("1913 Massacre") and a playful sing-along version of the 1925 standard "Ukelele Lady". A grower.

[Purchase]

Gentle Giant's third release is a concept album about three friends who go off on separate ways after school.  Gentle Giant isn't for everyone. They are keen musicians who plow into odd arrangements and odd meters  with odd lyrics. But if you're ready for a challenge, give these prog rock legends a try.

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40 Year Itch: Checking the Charts

Checking in with the charts at the end of of April 1972:


USA #1
 FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE Roberta Flack
Top US Debut
IT'S GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME The Carpenters
 R and B #1
 DAYDREAMING Aretha Franklin
Adult Contemporary #1
 FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE Roberta Flack 
USA #1 album
FIRST CHAPTER Roberta Flack




 WLS RADIO TOP TEN
 1. The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face -Roberta Flack
 2. Rockin' Robin - Michael Jackson
 3. Baby Blue - Badfinger
 4. Doctor My Eyes - Jackson Browne
 5. A Horse With No Name - America
 6. Daydreaming - Aretha Franklin
 7. In The Rain - The Dramatics
 8. A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done - Sonny and Cher
 9. The Family Of Man - Three Dog Night
10. Betcha By Golly Wow - The Stylistics


 KQV Radio Top Ten
1 THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE (6th Week) Roberta Flack
 2 HORSE WITH NO NAME America
 3 I GOTCHA Joe Tex
 4 SLIPPIN' IN THE DARKNESS War
 5 BETCHA BY GOLLY, WOW ! ** Stylistics
 6 CANDY MAN Sammy Davis, Jr.
 7 PUPPY LOVE Donny Osmond
 8 HEART OF GOLD Neil Young
 9 IN THE RAIN Dramatics
 10 COWBOY'S WORK IS NEVER DONE ** Sonny and Cher


UK Pop Chart
 1 Amazing Grace The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
 2 Back Off Boogaloo Ringo Starr
 3 Without You Nilsson
 4 Sweet Talking Guy The Chiffons
 5 Come What May Vicky Leandros
 6 The Young New Mexican Puppeteer Tom Jones
 7 Debora Tyrannosaurus Rex
 8 Run Run Run Jo Jo Gunne
 9 Radancer Marmalade
 10 Until It's Time For You To Go Elvis Presley

#1 UK album
 T Rex - My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows


Australia Album chart
 1. AMERICAN PIE Don McLean
 2. LED ZEPPELIN IV Led Zeppelin
 3. TEASER AND THE FIRECAT Cat Stevens
 4. A NOD'S AS GOOD AS A WINK TO A BLIND HORSE The Faces
 5. BEST OF THE BEE GEES Bee Gees

 Australia Singles Chart'
 1. WITHOUT YOU Nilsson
 2. AMERICAN PIE Don McLean
 3. JOY Apollo 100
 4. A HORSE WITH NO NAME America
 5. RANGER'S WALTZ The Mom And Dads

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40 Year Itch: Maidens, Warriors and Sentinels

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The year after Wishbone Ash won Melody Maker's Brightest Hope Award, they delivered Argus (on April 28,1972), their third album, a progressive rock classic, and the best selling of their career. Written for the most part on acoustic guitars, songs like "Time Was", "Sometime World" and the classic "Blowin' Free" all build up in intensity and let loose into full blown twin guitar jams --some of which rock out in the spirit of The Who. (Wishbone Ash had opened for The Who on their US tour of Tommy.)

The band's claim to fame was their dual lead guitars ( Andy Powell and Tim Turner) and bassist-lyricist Martin Turner's lyrics, which on Argus involves fair maidens, warriors and leafs and streams. The album cover, by Hipgnosis, was shot with the sentinel dressed in a costume from Ken Russell's film The Devils.
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There are moments of exquisite beauty. The folky track "Leaf And Stream" (below)  has lyrics from drummer Steve Upton. But, for an instant feel to the album, check out the second track "Sometime World". Powell told the website ProgSheet it is his favorite track:

 I liked (bassist) Martin Turner’s vocals when he sang naturally like this, instead of the later more contrived Bowie-esque thing he tried towards the end of the 70’s. His chord section and melody gave way to my construction of the fast section which opened with a high A chord to G chord inversion, almost Mexican in flavor. The three part guitar and vocal scat melody over this was a flash of inspiration for which I was responsible, as was the entire contrapuntal bass part which Martin executes admirably. I love Steve Upton’s drumming and the whole thing is overlaid with my solo guitar work - some of the best and most inspired work I’ve ever done. It really captures what I’m about as a player and I love the song for offering me the canvas upon which to show my particular mojo.


Turner remixed the album in 1989. The 2002 version contains three live tracks from the EP Live In Memphis. If you don't know Wishbone Ash, this is the place to start. It was named 1972's album of the year by Sounds Magazine and "Top British Album" by Melody Maker. Argus remains one of progressive rock's greats.

The album's popularity (#3 in the UK) sent Wishbone Ash onto a stadium filling US tour, usually second or third billed,  leading to guitarist Tim Turner retiring with exhaustion

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40 Year Itch: Traffic Jams in Santa Monica

Recorded over two nights in January of 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium during a tour to promote Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, a Top Ten album.

 Tracks:
 "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" from Low Spark
 "Light Up or Leave Me Alone" from Low Spark
 "John Barleycorn" from John Barleycorn Must Die
 "Rainmaker" from Low Spark
 "Glad"  from John Barleycorn Must Die
 "Freedom Rider"  from John Barleycorn Must Die
 "40,000 Headmen" from Traffic
 "Dear Mr. Fantasy" from Mr Fantasy

 Steve Winwood, vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass; Jim Capaldi, percussion, vocals; Chris Wood, flute, saxophone; Rebop Kwaku Baah, percussion; Roger Hawkins, drums; David Hood,bass.

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40 Year Itch: A Majestic Live Album

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 The idea of a rock band playing with a symphony wasn't new. The Beatles had done it and so had the Moody Blues. Both The Nice ( Five Bridges) and Deep Purple (Concerto For Group And Orchestra) had recently recorded live albums with orchestras. Procol Harum's Gary Brooker attended the latter recording.

'I went to see the Deep Purple thing at the Albert Hall, we'd done our bit at Stratford, I wanted to see how other bands approached working with an orchestra, but their thing was so unimaginative. Like maybe for five minutes of the time they were playing together, what they lacked was material.'

So when the general manager of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra invited Procol Harum to play with an orchestra and chorus, Gary Booker and the band decided they'd make a record out of it. It was hardly as easy as that. There's an entire website devoted to witnesses, musicians and the multitude of problems that came up. Arrangements written on the plane. Instruments detained by customs. A new guitarist who had replaced the legendary Robin Trower. A musicians union chief glaring at the clock. Just a day and a half of rehearsals. A conductor who demanded that his name be taken off the album. A quadraphonic recording so costly Procol Harum would have to sell 120,000 copies just to break even. Even so, Brooker had no plans to play the band's only hit, "A Whiter Shade of Pale",

If you're expecting to hear mushy, melodramatic string-laden excess, you're in for a surprise. The album is absolutely majestic, setting the gold standard for symphonic rock. In fact In Concert, released in April of 1972,  went gold in the US where the lead off track, an unrehearsed "Conquistador" went Top 20 as a single. Side 2's epic "In Held 'Twas In I" received a standing ovation. 

The track I suggest you hear is the nearly eight minute "Whaling Stories" (originally released on 1970's Home).This is the band and orchestra's third take on the tune that night. Early on, Brooker and the boys were nervous . They even stopped halfway through the first attempt at "Whaling Stories" when the band and orchestra lost track of each other. But here, they nail it. The Da Camera singers come in at the end and its sheer transcendence.

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40 Year Itch : Big Star's Debut

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When ex Boxtops crooner Alex Chilton teamed up with Anglophile Chris Bell,  one thing they shared in common was the love of a classic mid-60's pop song.

"I loved British music myself." Chilton said in a 1987 interview."When I first got interested in rock n roll, it was when all the British stuff first started coming out. ( From) '64 through '66, I thought music was great. But then in '67, when all the psychedelic Californian music started happening, people got more pretentious, but '64 to '66 was still three-minute songs and everything was fairly understandable.

Big Star wasn't the only band reliving the glory years of 60's pop. The Raspberries and Badfinger come immediately to mind. But Chilton and Bell weren't just reclaiming the 60's, they were reclaiming their own youth. Has a song ever better captured the hopelessly romance of first love the way "Thirteen" does? Or the thrills that can be found by passing around a  joint in a car borrowed from unknowing parents ("In The Street")?

The album failed to sell more than 10,000 perhaps , in part, due to poor distribution and possibly because of the singles chosen.  "When My Baby's Beside Me" and  "Don't Lie To Me"  are fairly straight-forward ravers and don't offer much of a glimpse into what a treasure #1 Record is. It took Rolling Stone's Bud Scoppa ten months to get around to reviewing the album but he got it right when he said it's "exceptionally good...even Rundgren hasn't made a whole album as impressive as this one".

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40 Year Itch: Lennon's Feminist Anthem

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A lot of men wanted to support women's rights. This single, released on April 24, 1972, probably wasn't the way to do it. The title is based on something Yoko said in 1969. Naturally the BBC banned the song. A lot of radio stations refused to play it and it became the lowest charting single of Lennon's career.




The song may have been offensive to some people but it all fit into Lennon's view of revolution. Here's what he told Red Mole Magazine in 1971:

  The women are very important too, we can't have a revolution that doesn't involve and liberate women. It's so subtle the way you're taught male superiority. It took me quite a long time to realise that my maleness was cutting off certain areas for Yoko. She's a red hot liberationist and was quick to show me where I was going wrong, even though it seemed to me that I was just acting naturally. That's why I'm always interested to know how people who claim to be radical treat women.


 Lennon was proud of the song. He claimed in a Playboy interview it was the first feminist anthem before Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman". Actually Reddy released "I Am Woman" in August 1971. It just failed to so much of anything until September of 1972. By the holiday season "I Am Woman" was #1.

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