Saturday 26 March 2016

Looking Glass (1973) Wooly Eyes

'Brandy (such a fine girl)' hitmakers and New Jersey Country Rock group Looking Glass should have had a longer career rivalling the Eagles and the Doobie Bros instead of two albums and an unshakeable one hit wonder status.  Mainly due to bassist and second lead vocalist Piet Sweval who was their secret weapon with edgy ballads such as One by One and For Skipper. Sweval's raw vocal always piercing through on the ballads with a prominent crack in his rootsy voice, it's important to acknowledge it's not him on Brandy or their other hit Jimmy loves Mary Anne, though he was a bigger talent than the man who wrote those two hits, the singer and frontman Elliott Lurie.


Thursday 24 March 2016

Uriah Heap (1972) The Wizard

This underrated British band made a more prog styled hard rock sound and are still not appreciated to this day.  An enchanting tale of meeting the titular wizard it's the soaring vocals of David Byron, the uplifting heaviness and the bands harmonies that make this song appeal to many with a dare I say gospel quality.


Wednesday 23 March 2016

Black Sabbath (1976) Symptom of the Universe

Off the Sabotage album Sabbath's hardest hitting album with brutal numbers such as Hole in the Sky driven by a hard driving guitar figure and a virtuoso solo from Tony Iommi.  It's the sudden descent into a flamenco guitar section at 4:13 mark that is breathtaking flawlessly slipping into a jazzy rock progression with Ozzy's vocals howling vocals keeping the consistency with the  scorchingly delivered sentiment.  It presents their experimental side of the 70s along with their pioneering classic metal sound mixing chugging rhythms; the shift into a delicate, pleasant summery atmosphere is pulled off and is a understated feat.


The Doobie Brothers (1977) Echoes of Love

Though it's a cover of a song written by Memphis Soul legend and Hi Records Producer Willie Mitchell, it was the Doobies who first did it and their version is pretty much definitive. They bring a smooth, Blue-eyed Soul classic bringing an incredibly sultry groove to what would have been more raw and funky had it been handed over to a Memphis act. The smooth jazzy song fitted well with the new McDonald era of the band. His lush keyboards and smoky falsetto support Pat Simmons on lead vocals. Simmons' laid back vocal fits the relaxed love song and gets to show off his soulful qualities.  While Jeff Baxter adds some traditional jazz guitar noodling to the song' coda along with some bright horns makes for a poppy feel. Bizarrely this wonderful soul number with a mainstream sound could only get to no 66, an odd occurrence of a quality song not becoming a hit particularly when it matches their hit the previous year Takin it to the Streets.. 



Sunday 20 March 2016

Deep Purple (1971) Anyone's Daughter

Anyone's Daughter is a bizarre oddity of a track, a country, rootsy song, midtempo with chicken picked guitar and some bluesy phrases and strongly reverbed steel guitar sliding in the background. A departure from the Classic Purple sound, heavy monolithic metal with complete with classical guitar and organ passages and speed drumming. For a band that had many different members, line-ups and genres their music always was played with the same intensity, a  grounded crunch with frequent bursts of classically influenced soloes. This song veers away considerably with it's acoustic presence but it's got a solid groove and a more melodic touch than the heavily syncopated riffs of Purple classics.



Thursday 17 March 2016

The Who (1971) Naked Eye‏

Featuring some of Pete Townshend's most soulful and raw rhythm guitar playing and strongly emotive lead fills seguing in and out it's an atmospheric track that started life as a tender detour during performances of My Generation. While it's use in My Generation was a nice Zeppelin-esque  shift in dynamics before the music kicked up again here it is a sombre ballad about either marriage or being in a band, or both, and how nothing happens the way you imagine.  It is a rare track Daltrey and Townshend share vocals with the former providing a deep cowboy vocal before the latter sings in a terse falsetto straining with heartache. A track from the towering Who's Next album, this was arguably one of the less flashy songs in an album bursting with electricity and innovative layers but is a gem none the less.


Wednesday 16 March 2016

Captain Beyond (1972) Myopic Void‏

A super group that brought together Deep Purple Mark 1's vocalist Rod Evans (He sang Hush) with Iron Butterfly's Guitarist Larry Rheinhardt and Bass player Lee Dornan along with Johnny Winter's drummer Bobby Caldwell, Captain Beyond were a like the original Deep Purple a heavy Prog band thought with less 60's Medieval Folk references and more 70's space rock. The band also has a heavy Boogie style like Kansas, a prog band that would debut the next year with quite a bit of swing. The mixture of hard rock guitars and tight playing make their debut album a enjoyable listen, particularity as only one song breaks the four minute barrier making this quiet accessible though a little repetitive at times. The standout track is Myopic Void with some interesting textures, wirring, echoey pedal steel guitars and a marching drum beat lay the foundation for a Sci-Fi jam. A catchy backing chorus slowly builds in at the end filling in the musical void and cap off this short, glowing track from a band that once again deserved more recognition.



Tuesday 15 March 2016

Todd Rundgren's Utopia (1974) Freedom Fighters‏

This was Producer Todd Rungren's mid 70s project, an incredible band of prog musicians creating dense works and it dosen't get better than this debut which was criminally underestimated on its release. Rungren's skills in crafting a complete album through his work with Grand Funk, Badfinger and later XTC is best realised here with this band's ability to create long, entertaining passages of music and keep your interest with indelible hooks throughout (something very few prog bands can do). Though this whole album cant be separated, from start to finish it is a diverse sound painting but I thought for blog post length I wouldnt choose the 10 plus minute tracks and go for the only single length track. It's mix of  funky moogs, prog grandeur and psychedelic lead vocals makes it a pretty good example of the album and the band's brilliance where genres are fused organically and the music flows smoothly through dramatic shifts in pace, mood and dynamics. 


Friday 11 March 2016

Some Thoughts on Glenn Frey

A rare non song related blog post, just some musings on the recently passed member of the Eagles Glenn Frey.

The thing that is most apparent about Glenn Frey in the wake of his sudden death is no one could readily get hang on who he was. Unlike Bowie there is a disparity in how Frey is being remembered. He is eulogised as 'the Eagles guitarist' but it's an odd label as he has once claimed to be the worst guitarist in the band and there is some insecurity and deprecation about his lead guitar as he hired guitar heroes like Joe Walsh and Don Felder to the band. He became the bands chief pianist in the latter half of the band. Not to mention he sang on more singles than the others and had more songwriter credits than any of the other six Eagles. Then there is the fact Hotel California is played in many of the tribute articles over say a song Frey sung lead on or lead guitar even. While it is a huge pinnacle wouldn't something like Take It Easy which was a huge cultural point for them have worked as Frey is front and centre, even New Kid in Town or the last chart topper Heartache Tonight would be more appropriate. Another noticeable thing is the strong difference in  physical appearance. He had a certain look in the 70s with the long flowing hair, patches on his flares and Tex-Mex tache; he looked like a 70s country rocker, but since 1978 he has had a more clean cut look that has lasted the rest of his life;  suited and not with the glam lookof many ageing rockers. On the surface you may have never guessed they were the same person and possibly you realise he was going through a phase and maybe it was just a trend and not the real Glenn

It all leads to my biggest point which is musical; Frey did Country ballads,  Hard Rock, RnB,  Soul and all convincingly but only had major success in country. I realise The Heat is On and You Belong to The City aren't country but we're both part of larger soundtracks rather than just him as a isolated creative entity. His tender pop voice and harmony arrangements were key to Country Rocks success while other artists were too traditional he mixed the right amount of pop, rock and balladry some say it's watering down country's raw emotions but I feel it adapted it to legions of young rock and pop audiences and added a new lighter edge to it. Possibly it was his and Henley's shared fondness for Al Green's smooth, layered Memphis soul that was the hidden secret to their approach to suave, sleek Country Rock. 

After listening to Frey's achingly tender voice on solo tracks like Some Kind of Blue, his cover of Caroline No and The One You Love, I am reminded of Gram Parsons' delivery. Parsons wanted to fuse different genres of American music to create an Americana, and like Frey had a fondness for rock and roll as well as ballads.  The Cosmic American Music he spoke of never sounded as tangible than in the magical strums washing over you in Take It Easy. Frey went further into soul, another American genre and shared a love of Gospel tunes with Gram. And while Gram labelled the Eagles bubblegum and too sugary, this was based only on their first album; he died tragically in late 1973 before the dark, bitter songs of Desperado and Hotel California albums. While Gram had more grit and less commercial arrangements I feel Glenn kept his spirit going more than anyone if not his sense of tradition which is the reason I prefer Glenn

Glenn Frey was definitely an enigma and misunderstood even after his death but his legacy will grow as people realise just how well constructed those songs were.



Badfinger (1972) Day After Day

'I remember finding out about you'   
 This glistening ballad from the band was once hailed as the successors to the Beatles is full of latent feelings and pop hooks worthy of the Fab Four. This Pete Ham composition is one of his many works that have the same mix of interesting music ideas, pop structure and deep lyrics as Paul McCartney. The bright mix of acoustic guitar, tick tocking piano fills, psychedelic slide guitar shouldn't work with the downbeat theme of loneliness and yet it does. The song is driven along by a bouncy bass drum roll; the song somehow manages to mix ballad sensitivity with hard rock rhythms and that's the art of Power Pop. A genre that few bands made a career in apart from Cheap Trick and Big Star, power pop is a mix of rock and pop and was originally coined by Pete Townshend to describe The Who's brand of heavy pop. Badfinger updated the light, breezy Merseyside pop with 70s hard rock crunch and scored a number of classic songs mainly from their 1972 album Straight Up, of which this was the lead single. Produced by Todd Rundgren and featuring George Harrison on slide the song hits you like freight train with no excess and immaculate production worthy of George Martin. RIP




Saturday 5 March 2016

Tom Johnson (1979) Reaching Out For the Lovin From You


 In the late 70s Doobies fans were split who to follow of their front men, while newer fans may have been more open to Michael McDonald incarnation that churned out smooth, gospel Blue Eyed Soul, a lot of their fans were drawn to the heavy rock and RnB that the original era was built on until Tom Johnson left. So fans loyal to him may have been disappointed by the mid tempo disco flavoured yacht rock he produced on his solo debut.
Though it had elements of soul it was far more tamer and lush then the raw fuel injected raves of early 70s Doobie Brothers though I like some of the tracks such as Reaching Out.

 It has an angelic chorus and organ work mixed with Tom Johnston soulful vocals,  punchy horns and a smooth disco flavour.  While I like the chorus melody it's the former Doobies exquisite rhythm guitar playing that is best slightly buried in the mix below the yacht rock layers this is his best solo gem. Ironically the smooth disco soul isn't too far from what the Doobie were doing at the same time yet this features at its core Johnsons' patented RnB approach.




Friday 4 March 2016

Bobby Womack (1976) Behind Closed Doors

The soul superstar Bobby Womack cut an album of Country and Western songs in the mid 70s aptly titled BW goes CW(1976), bringing his signature  take on soul music to a different type of music; it was considered a critical misstep however once you get past an initial scepticism the majority of songs work. Bobby Womack's relaxed vocals and oriental slide guitar mix well with the bluesy, rootsy material whilst also adding touches of heavy rock n roll and belting out soulful vocal ticks along the way. He adds a latent emotion and power to the songs while some slip note piano and pedal steel compliment his down-hearted vocals well.

Behind Closed Doors, a classic country hit never sounded as good as hear with Womack's warm, tender vocals bringing more range to the song and breathing more life into it's dour original. Go listen and reappraise this effort for yourself!


Thursday 3 March 2016

Mark Farner (1977) Easy Breezes

Another form 1977, Grand Funk's frontman and guitarist Mark Farner releases his first solo album with a few surprises, this country inflected ballad has shades of I'm Your Captain's latent groove and autumnal elegance. His soaring vocals excellent at conveying deeper feelings of wistfulness never fully utilized in Grand Funk's balls to the wall rock, pop and RnB territory.


Bread (1977) Hold Tight

Based around a jaunty Bo Diddley beat this Bread song embraces an upbeat Disco flavour and slightly works with the typical dalliances into falsetto working well with shades of George McCrae's heavenly vocals. Larry Knetchel's bright organ work, the orchestra backing and rock steady jam makes this a delightful gem from the last era of Bread. You can imagine this mellow track being played in an all night disco.


Tuesday 1 March 2016

Nick Lowe (1979) Cruel to be Kind

A roaring power pop anthem from the late 70s from Elvis Costello collaborator Nick Lowe. It's an upbeat pop song with a memorable hook and message it reminds me of the Pretenders and of The Miracles particularly Shop Around.