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Minggu, 10 April 2016

US Top 20: April 10, 1976




   From the album Eargasm, Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" topped the US pop charts for four straight weeks on its way to becoming the first platinum single ever. That's despite the fact that it's not a disco song. With leering lyrics like "Lord have mercy girl, You dance so fine, and you're right on time/ Girl you ought to be on T.V. on Soul Train/ When you get the groove, It ain't no stopp-in/ Just can't help it, I'm finger pop-pin", the song became an instant seller. Columbia Records president Bruce Lundvall sent Taylor bottles of Dom Perignon champange. "I took a bath in it," Taylor later admitted. "It makes your skin so smooth!"



1 DISCO LADY –•– Johnnie Taylor 
2 DREAM WEAVER –•– Gary Wright  
3 LONELY NIGHT (Angel Face) –•– The Captain and Tennille 
4 LET YOUR LOVE FLOW –•– The Bellamy Brothers 


6 DREAM ON –•– Aerosmith 
7 BOOGIE FEVER –•– The Sylvers 
8 ONLY SIXTEEN –•– Dr. Hook 
9 SWEET LOVE –•– The Commodores 


10 GOLDEN YEARS –•– David Bowie 
11 SHOW ME THE WAY –•– Peter Frampton 
12 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY –•– Queen 
13 SWEET THING –•– Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan 


14 DECEMBER, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) –•– The Four Seasons  
15 THERE’S A KIND OF HUSH (All Over the World) –•– The Carpenters 
16 MONEY HONEY –•– The Bay City Rollers 
17 DEEP PURPLE –•– Donny and Marie Osmond  
18 FOOLED AROUND AND FELL IN LOVE –•– Elvin Bishop  


19 ALL BY MYSELF –•– Eric Carmen 
20 WELCOME BACK –•– John Sebastian 



Sabtu, 09 April 2016

40 Year Itch : Burned in My Prime




  On April 9, 1976 Todd Rundgren released the single "Love of the Common Man", a nifty slice of pop perfection that radio stations simply did not play. That's why a local FM rock station in Reno, Nevada donated its promo single --as well as hundreds of others--- to the Washoe County Library. And that's how I got my 12 year old hands on this single ( as well as 10cc's "I'm Mandy Fly Me" and The Band's "Ophelia"). The library didn't want to keep track of the 45's so anyone could go into the Sparks, Nevada branch, grab a few at a time and keep them forever.
   I was a kid who would walk blocks and blocks past empty desert lots and small ranch houses with dead lawns and drop outs working on their broken down dirt bikes just to visit the library.
  

 What I didn't know at the time was that "Love of the Common Man" came from Faithful, with its Side A of note for note perfect copies of classic rock songs Rundgren loved like "Good Vibrations" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." Interesting once. Maybe twice and then you just have to ask "Why?"
     Side B had the good stuff, especially "Love of the Common Man", a return to the power pop form for those who loved Something/Anything. Rundgren was actually trying to avoid writing love songs at the time so I hear this as a celebration of the good nature of your everyday man, the kind who will catch you should you take a dive from your ivory tower.



Jumat, 08 April 2016

40 Year Itch : All the Guitar Heroes




  One of gun for hire Chris Spedding's follow-ups to his 1975 hit "Motobikin'", "Guitar Jamboree", released in April of 1976, reveals why Spedding was such a sought after session guitarist. ( He also played with The Sharks, The Wombles, toured with Roxy Music and John Cale...the list goes on)  Here in the space of four and a half minutes, Spedding imitates Albert King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jack Bruce, Paul Kossoff, Leslie West and Dave Gilmour. The song is well timed because many of these "men who made music history" would be left in the dust by the punk revolution brewing in the wings.

   For some less inhibited mimicry, see Spedding play this song live below:



Kamis, 07 April 2016

40 Year Itch : Remembering the Hag




   I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the death of Merle Haggard with this 1976 gem from his concept album My Love Affair With Trains. Among my ten year old son's faves, this album ranks right alongside Michael Jackson's Thriller. He shares Haggard's love of trains and this Ronnie Reno penned number hits all the right notes.



Rabu, 06 April 2016

40 Year Itch: Giving Praise





Satta Massagana for Jimmy Dread 
                         Cut off his ears and chop off his head
                                                              -The Clash "Jimmy Jazz"

  What if I told you 1976's best reggae album wasn't released by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh or even Bunny Wailer? Consider the roots reggae album Satta Massagana by The Abyssinians. The title can be translated from Amharic (a Semitic language in Ethiopia) into "Giving Him Praise" and it's full of both spiritual songs of devotion ( like "Forward Unto Zion" and "Y Mas Gan") and political songs like "Declaration of Rights" and "African Race". Band members Bernard Collins, Donald Manning, and Linford Manning used 60's soul and Motown-style vocal harmonies ( the best you'll ever hear from a reggae group) to express their deeply spiritual messages. Satta Massagana has rightfully grown in reputation over the years. This may wind up being your favorite reggae album - period. Essential listening!





One of the original covers of Satta Massagana.

Senin, 04 April 2016

40 Year Itch : A Cocktail Party in Space




  As we get into the month of April, how about one more track from March of 1976 that I can't seem to move on from just yet. Why, you might ask, would anyone suggest listening to an instrumental song on an album by the smoothest soul singer of his time? Well, it's because that smooth soul singer could also play the drums, and on I Want You, he can be heard experimenting with the synthesizer. It all sounds like some kind of spacey cocktail party jam. But I dig it.



Minggu, 03 April 2016

40 Year Itch : Joe Strummer's Lightening Bolt

That's Joe Strummer on the right



   On April 3, 1976 the Sex Pistols opened for Joe Strummer's pub rock / rockabilly/ R and B band, the 101ers, at the Nashville. Within five seconds of hearing the punk rockers' opening set, Strummer saw the light: "As soon as I saw them , I knew that rhythm and blues was dead and that the future was here," Strummer told rock journalist Caroline Coon later in 1976. "But hearing the Pistols, I knew. I just knew. It was something you knew without bothering to think about it. Punk Rock is the music of the now."



    Just three months later, Strummer, Mick Jones, Bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and a third guitarist , future Public Image Ltd's Keith Levene, played their first gig, supporting the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan Pub in Sheffield on July 4. They called themselves The Clash.

     The band's early playlists included the Strummer-penned 101er single "Keys to Your Heart", "London's Burning", "White Riot", "Career Opportunities", "1977" and "I'm So Bored of You" ( later rewritten as "I'm So Bored of the USA").

     Also at the gig that April evening was future Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan who would later say of the Sex Pistols "They were the best rock'n'roll band of all time . I just couldn't believe it. This was the band I'd been waiting for."


Sabtu, 02 April 2016

40 Year Itch : I Know I Know I Know I Know




  I couldn't be more obsessed with a song than I am right now with this 18 minute disco epic Donna Summer wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for A Love Trilogy. If you enjoyed the New Wave sounds of the 1980's you'll hear many moments that should thrill you.

   At 5:28 there is a simple but very catchy marimba solo that might take you back to "Love Plus One" from Haircut 100.

  And at 9:26 there is a breakdown that sounds like something Talking Heads might have recorded on '77.

  It's all sandwiched between a dance track that is disco at its highest art form. Try it. You'll get it a big kick out of it.





Jumat, 01 April 2016

40 Year Itch : We Have Assumed Control



  My college roommate used to do these air drum impressions of Neil Peart which always ended with his arms flapping around so spasmodically that he would lose his balance and topple over. Although Peart wasn't the original drummer for Rush, the inclusion of this voracious reader of science fiction changed the band's direction for good.


  Ignoring the label's demand for a commercial album, the trio of Canadians who make up Rush indulged themselves on 2112, especially on the twenty minute title cut. It's the Ayn Rand inspired story of a guy who finds a strange device ( an electric guitar) which is destroyed by one of the screeching Priests of the Temples of Syrinx. His response is open to interpretation. Does he lead a revolution or hide in a cave and commit suicide? In any case, Rush came into its own on this album and eventually became the "biggest cult band in the world".

Kamis, 31 Maret 2016

Those We Missed: March, 1976


  On March 31, 1976 Led Zeppelin released Presence, the album the band recorded instead of going on tour thanks to the injuries Robert Plant suffered in a car accident. The word that best describes the album is "turgid". 


  Rather than waste a lot of space on this album, let's look at some other records we missed from March of 1976, including three live blockbusters.




   March of 1976 saw the release of the year's best live album. Robin Trower leads a trio through a set recorded in Stockholm a year earlier. Trower fans rate this above all his studio efforts, even Bridge of Sighs. Magnificent! 





Joe Walsh recorded this 34 -minute live career retrospective just months before joining the Eagles.





   When our college radio station took requests for a fundraising three day marathon, the old timers would pledge $10 to hear classic numbers like this one. Winter changes at least one line in this Bobby Womack crisis to celebrate the joys of oral sex. You need to hear Captured, Johnny Winter's third live album, in one sitting for the full effect. Raucous! 





  Among the hardest rocking of the UK pub scene-sters, Eddie and the Hot Rods would have a break out year in 1976, winning the NME poll for 1976's most promising band. It's all anticipated by this March 1976 single featuring the hard blowing harmonica sounds of Lew Lewis. The single would appear on the forthcoming Teenage Depression.



Michael McDonald's quest for world supremacy began here when he took over lead vocalist and some songwriting duties for Doobie Brother Tom Johnston.



  On Amigos, much to everyone's relief --and by everyone I mean primarily CBS Records executives, Carlos Santana finally seemed to tire of his jazz fusion adventures and returned to the latin influenced rock that made fans of millions. The result: Santana's first Top 10 album in four years. 






A sixteen minute Glam Rock epic may have been a year or two behind its time, and 14 minutes too long for the punk rock explosion to come. But people swear on the third or fourth hearing you'll come to realize it's a masterpiece.




Rabu, 30 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : The Pains of Boyhood





   A year after Rod Stewart took the Sutherland Brothers' tune "Sailing" to #1 for four weeks in the UK, the folksy brothers teamed up with the rock band Quiver to record some spotless pop tunes. "Arms of Mary" is the stand-out, a Top 10 UK hit and #1 in Ireland and The Netherlands that would later be covered by the Everly Brothers.  Quiver bassist Bruce Thomas would eventually join Elvis Costello and the Attractions.





Selasa, 29 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch: Sloppy Under the Midday Sun




   On March 26, 1976 Graham Parker and the Rumour released the Nick Lowe produced single "Silly Thing". Sure, it sounds like something Van Morrison might have released a few years earlier, with its Stax-influenced horns, its playful piano lines and the "hey hey"s in the chorus. But Graham, who two years earlier was a gas station attendant before Stiff Records founder Dave Robinson discovered him, wasn't trying to obscure his Cockney accent. That --and his contempt for, well, everything--was something he would emphasize as his career took off, inspiring every UK punk rocker to follow suit no matter where they came from. The song came from his forthcoming album, Howlin' Wind, one of the year's most critically acclaimed records.





Senin, 28 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch: The Sun Has Left the Sky




   On March 26, 1976 Camel released its fourth studio album, the highly regarded Moonmadness. The follow-up to critically-acclaimed concept album The Snow Goose has a concept as well: songs based on each band member's personality."Air Born" about guitarist and flautist Andrew Latimer, "Lunar Sea" about drummer Andy Ward, "Chord Change" about keyboardist Peter Bardens and the single "Another Night" about bassist Doug Ferguson. 
   The highlight, to these ears, is the second track "Song Within a Song". As you might guess, there are two songs in this seven minute track. The first three minutes wouldn't sound out of place on a Pink Floyd album. Then Andy Latimer's guitar signals a shift in gears and we're off on a moog-ish romp with Peter Bardens leading the way. 
   Moonmadness would be the final album featuring all four founding members as Ferguson moved on to form Headwaiter. But the next album would another special one thanks to some help from Brian Eno.


Minggu, 27 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Heard a Big A-Rumble




    On March 28, 1976 a 53 year old American rockabilly singer named Hank Mizell had a hit song in the UK Top 20. It was called "Jungle Rock" and it was recorded nearly twenty years earlier in 1958 for Eko Records. Charly Records, which specialized in old and obscure music,  released the single apparently without Mizell's knowledge. As the single leapt up the charts, a mad search ensued for Mizell. The Top of the Pops host said "We'd love to have him on the show. Trouble is nobody can find him". With that,  Pan's People performed the song in a memorable costumed romp.


    Mizell, eventually located in Tennessee working as a clerk in a shipping office, was convinced to fly out to the UK to help promote "Jungle Rock".  The single would hit #3 in the UK and #1 in Holland


UK TOP 20 for March 28, 1976

 4. John Miles : Music
 6. Gallagher and Lyle : I Wanna Stay With You
 7. Elton John Pinball Wizard
 8. The Beatles : Yesterday
 9. Marmalade : Falling Apart at the Seams
10. The Glitter Band : People Like You, People Like Me
12. The Drifters: Hello Happiness
13. The Eagles : Take It to the Limit
15. Guys and Dolls : You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
16. Peters and Lee : Hey Mr Music Man
17. Randy Edelman : Concrete and Clay
18. Hank Mizell : Jungle Rock
19. C.W. McCall : Convoy
20. Hot Chocolate : Don't Stop It Now




Sabtu, 26 Maret 2016

Album of the March, 1976 : Jailbreak





    On their make it or break it sixth studio album, Jailbreak, released on March 16, 1976, Thin Lizzy delivered the goods. There's more swagger on this album anything Bruce Springsteen released, though Phil Lynott admits the Boss may have helped Thin Lizzy finally break out: "Suddenly there was this Yank writing the same kind of songs as we were, the romantic street-fighting thing, and maybe people started looking around for something similar, a little closer to home".


   Not everyone was kind about their own comparison. Robert Christgau gave Jailbreak a B-minus writing : "The proof of how desperate people are for new Springsteen is that they'll settle for this -- even "The Boys Are Back in Town" is the sort of thing that ends up in Bruce's wastebasket. If Irish teen traumas are as boring as Phil Lynott's descriptions of them, it's no wonder they have trouble maintaining their birthrate. And if Irish teen traumas are as secondhand as Scott Gorham's guitar lines, the Irish will probably end up preferring Springsteen too."


History shows this was one of those rare times the dean of rock critics got it wrong, especially about "The Boys Are Back in Town", with its twin guitar work from Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. A Top 20 hit in the US as well as a UK#8 hit, "Boys" was an instant classic. My then 8 year old son took to it immediately when I first played it for him in the car. WE were the boys who were back in town as we drove around on our errands. 


There was equal menace in the title cut. Such a tough riff! No wonder Thin Lizzy would survive the punk revolution. What punk couldn't appreciate that sound or lyrics like
Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak 
 Somewhere in this town 
 See me and the boys we don't like it 
 So were getting up and going down...  


   Thin Lizzy were set to take over the world but on the US tour Lynott fell ill with hepatitis. Two years later, with the release of Live and Dangerous, we would all hear what we missed.
     In any case Jailbreak is one of the essential albums of 1976. Buy it now!



Jumat, 25 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch: Under His Carpet




   On March 25, 1976 Wings released its first "democratic" album and it is, as you might imagine, a very mixed affair.  Every member of the band got a chance to write or at least sing on an album by one of the very top bands in the world. It didn't work for Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1972 ( who remembers Mardi Gras?) and the first impression was that it didn't work for Wings either. Robert Christgau wrote "(McCartney) He certainly adds some tricky textures to otherwise forgettable songs, but that can't disguise their triviality".



   The album kicks off with "Let 'Em In", a Top 5 name-dropping hit in both the US and the UK. Denny Laine sings "The Note You Never Wrote" and on his own "Time to Hide". Linda sings on "Cook of the House". Drummer Joe English sings on "Must Do Something About It". And guitarist Jimmy McCulloch sings on "Wino Junkie", a song he wrote with fellow former Stone the Crows bandmate Colin Allen.


   Especially on the remastered album it really doesn't matter who's singing. The star of the song is McCartney's bass which has been moved up in the mix. On his US #1 smash, "Silly Love Songs", the bass is far more interesting than the lyrics, a response to critics who said McCartney had gone soft.



  40 years have passed and I have yet to get tired of listening to this "Silly Love Songs". What the hell is wrong with me?

   About the song McCartney says: "Over the years people have said, 'Aw, he sings love songs, he writes love songs, he's so soppy at times.' I thought, Well, I know what they mean, but, people have been doing love songs forever. I like 'em, other people like 'em, and there's a lot of people I love -- I'm lucky enough to have that in my life. So the idea was that "you" may call them silly, but what's wrong with that?


   Right now I'm going through a "Time to Hide" phase, even if  the "Will I love you tomorrow?" bridge is weak. Deeply flawed albums can also be interesting albums and Speed of Sound...is both.


Kamis, 24 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Another Shot of Rock n' Roll




   Nils Lofren's follow-up to his first solo album, one of my very favorites of 1975, just doesn't have the same impact. Blame it on the songs, the session musicians ( drummer Aynsley Dunbar and bassist Wornell Jones) or the curse of the sophomore slump. The best track, "Incidentally...It's Over", features the same rhythm section who played on the debut.











Rabu, 23 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Hideous Destructor




   There's no sugar-coating what life is going to be like for listeners of the metal classic Sad Wings of Destiny, the Judas Priest album released on March 23, 1976. Just look at the names of some of the songs : "Victim of Changes", "Deceiver", "Tyrant", "Genocide". Want to get your ears pierced? Let Rob Halford's vocals do the job!




Selasa, 22 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch: Let's Get Real, Real Gone




   By March 21 of 1976, Elvis Presley was literally bigger than ever. He had gained so much weight that in Cincinnati, he split the inseam of his blue studded jumpsuit during an afternoon show ( at 23:00 in the video below) and had to change into a less interesting white one. That show was reviewed by the Cincinnati Post under the headline "Elvis : F-A-T but Fun". The evening show wasn't even fun. A concert-goer wrote the Post complaining that The King of Rock and Roll "looked pale, his eyes were puffy, and he had difficulty talking" and remembering the lyrics. In 17 months he'd be dead.
  


    The next day RCA Records released The Sun Sessions, an album that reminded its listeners that before he ever became a star Elvis Presley was a young revolutionary with more charisma than anyone who would follow. Here is a compilation of singles Presley had recorded in Memphis for Sam Phillips in 1954-55. Today they are almost all considered classics: "That's All Right (Mama)", "Good Rockin' Tonight", "Mystery Train", "Blue Moon" and "Baby Let's Play House" which contained the line John Lennon stole for "Run For Your Life": "I'd rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man". 
  To listen to The Sun Sessions is to hear the birth of rock'n'roll.


Senin, 21 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Big Ed is All on the Lawn




  Featuring background vocals by the Pointer Sisters, "Daylight" --released in March of 1976 --was a Top 5 soul hit for Bobby Womack. It's all about the lifestyle of a hard partying night owl, staying up waaaay too long with Big Ed and other folks getting down in their stocking feet at 5 in the morning. It doesn't get any better than Bobby.



Minggu, 20 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Arrest of the Thin White Duke




  On March 20, 1976 David Bowie, Iggy Pop, a bodyguard and a local woman named Chiwah Soo were arrested at the Americana Rochester Hotel on marijuana charges. Bowie and Pop had apparently picked up two women in the bar and brought them up to their 17th floor suite. The women were both undercover officers. They called in the waiting police who found half a pound of marijuana. Bowie, Pop and the two other spent the night in jail. Released on $2000 bail, with no charges pressed, Bowie escaped the whole incident untarnished. Very lucky considering the hard-drug use going on at the time.




Sabtu, 19 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : A Boogie Fueled Rocket Ship





   March 1976 was quite the month for releases from the British light heavyweights. Of the new batch of Slade, Status Quo and Sweet albums, my money's on Blue For You. It features both the hit "Rain" and the fan favorite "Mystery Song" which has the slow build of a great Feelies tune before taking off like a boogie-fueled rocket ship. Brilliant! Is it too late to enlist in the Quo Army?




   In contrast, the new Sweet single is a freakish ear worm. The follow-up album to Desolation Boulevard has some hard rocking bubblegum including last year's classic single "Action". I need to give it a few more listens obviously.





Jumat, 18 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Don't Need a Cure





Everything I’ve done has been a failure.
-David Thomas

   On March 18, 1976,  Pere Ubu released the single "Final Solution" b/w "Cloud 149". No Nazi reference intended, this disquieting, monstrous epic is actually an anthem for the alienated teenager living inside each and every one of us. We're all outsiders. And if we can't get a girl to touch us, at least we have rock'n'roll. As for the sound of Pere Ubu, singer David Thomas once told The Guardian "I used to say that the bass player is actually the band’s guitarist, the guitarist is the bassist, the synthesiser is the vocal and I’m the horn section. "



Kamis, 17 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Three A.M. It's Me Again




    In March of 1976, Boz Scaggs released Silk Degrees, an album that spawned four hit singles including "Lowdown" (US#3) , "Lido Shuffle"(US#11), "It's Over" (US#38) and the album's opening track "What Can I Say"(US#42). With studio musicians and co-writers who would later form Toto, Silk Degrees lived on the charts for 100 weeks and yet Rolling Stone's David Leishman, among the first to hear the album,  wrote in his tin-eared review:

    Without solid rock as a base, Scaggs's more diverse approach falters. He sings well in the disco fashion, but the tunes don't have the meat to complement the first-rate ballads...to become as big a force as his is a talent, Boz Scaggs needs to reintroduce his own rock and roll. 






Rabu, 16 Maret 2016

40 Year Itch : Freak That She Was




   If Let's Get It On was Marvin Gaye's seduction album, I Want You, released on March 16, 1976,  is his sex album. 

   And just in case lines like "Let me explore all your treasures/ I'll turn you on to all of those freakish pleasures" ("Come Live With Me Angel) or "I'll be stroking you in and out /Up and down, all around /I love to hear you make those sound" weren't explicit enough, producer Leon Ware dropped in enough orgasmic female moaning ( from Gwenda Hambrick) a red-faced NME reviewer wrote "Although getting down, getting mellow, and getting it on are paramount considerations in the privacy of my own home, I don't particularly want to be party to someone else's night life. Not on record anyway ... Like peeking through the windows of the Gaye residence in the wee wee hours. Perhaps that's your kick, but personally I find it a mite frustrating." 


Both the title track and the album topped the soul charts.


"Since I Had You" is a deep cut produced by Gaye and Ware.


"After the Dance",  a US POP #74 hit, is my favorite song on the album


Leon Ware's Musical Massage, released in September of 1976, is a sampler's delight.