Bringing obscure songs from the 1970s such as deep album cuts, underrated cover songs and forgotten singles back on this blog. The 70s was a great time for music, possibly the best and the most diverse; that some gems that need to be rediscovered
The Sly Stone and The Family Stone 1971 opus There's a Riot Goin' On was considered their peak and true highlight of how the socially conscious music of the 60s could transition into the funk soul and disco of the 70s without losing it's edge. However what was once considered the most forward thinking and progressive of the 60s soon found themselves settling on that formula rather than changing it up and this would soon see them fall foul of critics. The songs would get tighter and more melodic as the record goes along and yet the vocals become wilder too. Brave & Strong is a great example of their unhinged jams, vocals wail, guitars clank, basses pickin, horns stack and rhythms churn; but nothing can beat Sly's patented croaked wail full of power and electricity, passion, sexuality and defiance. The band could be soothing and calming, smooth and slippery as ever then heavy and packin a lot of punch and syncopated wallop; truly a magical ensemble.
You Caught Me Smiling starts with an oriental ambient guitar line before sliding into a dapper groove, the honeyed backing vocals like a sea of cool while Sly's vocal like on Family Affair are filtered through a tinny microphone filter. Horns perk up a little here with some more rhythms to play such as a sustained rasp and the guitar is mixed nice and high.
Their tight in the pocket groove abilities kick off Spaced Cowboy with a little African rhtymm and some funked out trebly bass creeping in the mix while some wah wahed organ whines and washes in spurts like before while Sly proves why he is the most creative and inventive performer of all time with some amateur mountain yodelling strangely working with the funky wah wah beat in a obscure idea, think raw laurel and hardy as a harmonica solo full of soul enters chiming with the wah wah and panting drums .
Possibly saving best for last is seven minute album closer, Thank You For Talking To Me Africa, some James Brown guitar straddles a robotic bass part. They reference their own hit Thankyouforlettimiceself as guitar notes zing and some hazy gospel twang and a very hypnotic effect while Larry Graham's bass line keeps poppin.
Starting with a swift one,two bass drum kickoff, Jimmy Page strums some lilting guitar chords with the tremolo arm on, the gliding distortion approximating the ripples of the sea.
This is an oddity in the Zeppelin canon as it is built around a Wurlitzer electric piano; bobbing along with the tide in it's undulating trebly manner, similar to the intro to the Queen hit, My Best Friend. John Paul Jones also contributes a nifty little upper register piano break every now and then to lead back into the verses, while other interludes include some big steel guitar bends before leading into a trickling stream of descending tremolo guitar while Plant 'ahs' meanderingly over it.
This English Country hybrid tune just keeps on rolling like the waves as John Bonhams' distant drums give the track a dusky thud; perfect for this hot, humid summer malaise of a song. The chorus is a dreary musing of how 'people turned away..oh..people turned away', the stream of consciousness lyrics from Plant are delivered in a nasally, slightly downhome accent, sought've Mississippi by way of the Black Country. It's a sleepy, lazy, dog-day afternoon haze of a vocal; part observation, part day dream; his husky voice working in a far more laidback setting to how it is regularly utilised.
The bridge is the piece de resistance, possibly their greatest ever mid song excursion, it starts at the end of another chorus as Plant intones the refrain 'people turned..away', but on the last delivery, the delivery of the word 'away' is modifiled as it lands on a new chord and subsequent key change and so Plant lowers his voice accordingly. Sonically we descend into a warbling, underwater passage, a rhythm guitar strikes a funky chicken scratch riff setting a firm groove for a delta blues soloing to play over it. Meanwhile there is a reverberated chamber echo of Plant's voice bouncing off the walls as he scats his most guttural as well as adding refrains of 'see how they run' (which for years I always thought it said "Seek Hollywood" because of Plant's odd phrasing). It all reminds me of the murky, submersed mid section of Over the Hills and Far Away; which also bore a watery mix, a funky strum pattern and a slowed down guitar solo.
However all good things must come to an end, and what an end, the bridge abruptly climaxes in a little hard rock middle eight that features a thrumming bass line and Plants' wicked vocals, doubled for sinister quality. It immediately commands your full attention as Plant demands; 'Do you still do the twist. Do you find you remember things that well'. The line crescendos into crashing guitars chords before a second repeat of the formula ends the whole bridge as it started; with a sudden key change on the last note and before we know it we're back to the plodding tempo of the verses. Its one of the smoothest, most subtle and inventive transitions I’ve ever heard in all of the 70s. The chiming tremolo chords and bubbling Wurlitzer rhytmms return with turnarounds of train horn guitar bends, Joneseys' lounge jazz piano flourishes and dribbling guitar passages before ending on another doubled Plant vocal line. Here, he sings 'Don't they know that they're going?' in a clipped Southern accent, much more pronounced than anywhere else in this song and its drenched in echo for a very wistful ending note of elegiac longing.
OK class, what have we learned from this rambling piece; I can't self-edit or contain my admiration of Zeppellin and..they were masters of composition and how to create dynamic changes!
A Roy Wood ELO number along the lines of Whisper in the Night, it displays in full ELO's early heavily Progged out sound from Wood's demonic croon that is electronically processed much the same as Peter Hammill with a crackly distortion and a high cutoff frequency. The tale about the eponymous Nellie is secondary to the dragged out piano and lazy day drawl delivery of Wood. The middle section like Battle of Marston Moor on this record displayed their mini orchestra with a turgid cello and double bass and shrieking strings like a neo-renaissance interpretative dance. But I love the hazy lethargic downbeat quality of the track and how Roy Wood's croaked vibrato is enhanced and then slowly submerged in a very crackly and vibrating filter. The contrast of a very old style of music and a very new mechanical vocal is a great contrast, the delivery of Wood's vocals intensifies along with the layers of flanger or whatever that effect is, it would be used for that megaphonic effect heard years later on Mr Blue Sky and many more of ELo's poppier songs but here it suits Wood's voice far more than Lynne as heard here.
