Phil's Vinyl Addiction (by Phil Harland) » 1960s

Unexpected rock instruments: Sitar

pharland — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:19:52 +0000

When one thinks of traditional rock and roll, one generally pictures a band of four and the instruments are usually the drums, bass, guitar, and vocal, as well as some keyboards. (You can also throw in a harmonica and tambourine, if you like). As rock developed into the 1960s, however, a variety of other unexpected instruments came to be used in rock and roll, particularly in connection with progressive rock. This is the first of several posts dealing with the unexpected rock instrument.

The sitar is a stringed instrument with strong resonation that was used since the middle ages in classical Hindustani music in India, as explained in the Wikipedia article. The sitar has a distinctive sound and produces a rich harmony. Before the mid-1960s, it would occur to noone that the sitar could be a rock and roll instrument as well, but that’s what it became.

There were apparently two main performers who first noticed the sitar and began to get others, such as George Harrison, interested in the instrument. In 1965, David Crosby (then of the Byrds) came into contact with the musician and sitarist Ravi Shankar and began to spread the news about classical Indian music.

The second figure was Shawn Phillips, whose Second Contribution was a topic of a previous post here. Phillips himself was more directly responsible for Harrison’s use of the instrument, it seems. Phillips, who had already become familiar with playing the sitar, actually gave George Harrison lessons, as mentioned in a recent interview of Phillips in Modern Guitars Magazine:

Interviewer: I understand that you sang backup on the Beatles “Lovely Rita”. How did you get there and what was that like?

Phillips: Well, hanging out in England and working with Don, you just sort of ran into all these people at the clubs we’d got to like the Speakeasy. We’d run into Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, all these people and gradually you get to know people.

At one point I was giving sitar lessons to George Harrison. He was just getting started with the instrument. We had dinner over at his house, I don’t know how many times, and I’d sit down and give him the pointers I knew and so forth and one day he said, “Why don’t you guys come over and visit the studio? We’re doing this new album.”

We walked in and Paul said, “Hey, why don’t’ you guys sing back up on this tune?”

You don’t think about the fact that you may be making music history. We were just a bunch of guys hanging out.

The sitar was soon to become an important sound of the Beatles as they entered their more interesting, psychedelic stage. “Norwegian wood” on Rubber Soul (1965) was the first use of the sitar on a rock record, it seems, and Harrison would continue to use the sitar along with his continued involvement in Hinduism. You can read a good description of this influence on Harrison’s life in The Guardian obituary. Soon others such as the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones likewise began to incorporate the sitar into their music, as on “Paint it black” (1966).

As to Shawn Phillips, there is an interesting video on Youtube in which Shawn Phillips explains a bit about the sitar and he and Donovan perform on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest show in 1965. Whether this was before or after giving lessons to Harrison, I’m not sure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIvUjexgvak

There’s also a video there regarding George Harrison’s subsequent lessons with Ravi Shankar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erLZ-zW9Ti4

Motown meets Bayou: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “I heard it through the grapevine” (1970)

pharland — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:27:59 +0000

Listen while you read: “Heard it through the grapevine” (a half-decent recording of the song on youtube opens up in a new window)

I’ve been listening to a lot of Motown and related (R&B, Soul, Funk) since getting back into vinyl, including the likes of Al Green, Supremes, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, and others. Marvin Gaye has been one of the highlights. The three-disc Anthology gives a great overview of his contributions, including his performance of “I heard it through the grapevine” (1968) , which is definitely a strong point in his repertoire. (The song was also done by Gladys Knight and the Pips the year before.)

What I had forgotten about was perhaps the rockinest (to use my five year old son’s vocabulary) and longest (11 minutes) version of this tune, which, in my opinion, may top any version of the tune. I am referring to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s southern-blues-rock-soaked rendition of 1970 (on the album Cosmo’s Factory).

From the slow-moving bass lines and staccato drumming that initiate the tune to the ever-interesting, rough vocal treatment by John Fogerty and the fine guitar solos, this version keeps my musical interest throughout. The rhythmic interplay of the two basses together with the slow-train-coming beat of the refrain create a trance-like experience in listening to this tune (it helps that it’s 11 minutes long). The final guitar solo that accompanies this swamp blues onslaught brings the whole thing to a perfect culmination, in my opinion.

I am really beginning to appreciate CCR, despite the fact that I might have thought of their music as southern, “old-people” music at one point. Maybe this is because I am an “old person” (read: over 30) now.

For an excellent site about Creedence Clearwater Revival, including discography, lyrics, and guitar riffs, go here. Wikipedia also has some information here. The cover up and to your left is the cover of Bayou Country (1969), which has some other CCR classics including “Bayou country”, “Good golly Miss Molly”, and “Proud Mary”. That one happens to be my favourite of their albums.

Favourite Christmas album: Ella Fitzgerald’s Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

pharland — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:40:27 +0000

Listen while you read: Open up the Verve jukebox in a new window (the jukebox will automatically play a snippet of each tune from the album)

Don’t let the strange (though cool-looking) cover with a multi-coloured unicorn eating a flower fool you. This is a Christmas album, and an excellent one!

Don’t get me wrong. I have quite a few favourites to listen to around the Christmas season, including Bing Crosby’s White Christmas (1961). There are times when I like to listen to some traditional carols or some Amy Grant Christmas tune (despite the fact that I would consider anything Amy Grant produces utterly hokey at any other season). Sometimes I even get out the ol’ trumpet and play a few Christmas carols myself, or torture friends by doing a trumpet duet with my friend Jeff. I always like to hear U2′s rendition of “Chistmas baby please come home”, the Eurythmics’ version of “Winter wonderland”, or Sting’s “Gabriel’s message” on A Very Special Christmas (1987). Bells of Dublin (1991) by the Chieftans is another lively and upbeat one with a different sound.

In terms of jazz, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (or without that cartoon), and I do especially like Diana Krall’s Christmas Songs (2005). But this bluesy and jazzy album by Ella Fitzgerald, which is very well-produced and remastered, wins out in many ways.

Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (1960, Verve) opens with a fast paced “Jingle bells” that my five year old son requests to have replayed just about every time we listen to the album (it ends with a memorable “I’m just crazy ’bout horses” line from Ella). The swinging beat stands out it in this song, as it does throughout the tunes, and the not-overdone style of back-up-singing that accompanies Fitzgerald’s smooth but trumpet like vocals is also characteristic of the album as a whole. There are also slower, softer pieces, like “The Christmas song”, in which Ella is accompanied by a vibraphone and some soft-playing saxophones. Vibraphones are also prominent on Ella’s excellent rendition of “White Christmas”. More somber but especially highlighting the range of Ella’s voice is the We Three Kings / O Little Town of Bethlehem medley. The album concludes with an up-beat and swingin’ version of “Christmas island”. This album stands the test of time.

“21st Century Schizoid Man. . . “: King Crimson’s debut (1969)

pharland — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:41:21 +0000

Seldom does an album-cover embody the essence of a song so perfectly (or vice versa), but that is the case with the disturbing cover of King Crimson’s debut album of 1969, the year of my birth (art by Barry Godber). The thing is, An Observation by King Crimson (© 1969 E.G. Music Ltd) is such a mixture of extremely well-constructed and performed pieces that you should not let the cover or the first frightening and experimental, yet intriguing, track scare you away! (How could it with its capturing allure?)”21st century schizoid man” is one of the most intense songs I have ever heard, and it was only in the last month that I heard it for the first time (as far as I can remember) when I picked up a near mint copy of the album at a flea market for a buck fifty (the deal of the 21st century). This piece starts out intense and dominating, with its screaming, electronically altered vocals and throbbing rhythm section. It then segues into a no less intense free jazz saxophone bombardment (the sax was there from the beginning, in case you didn’t notice) followed by a jazz guitar solo that gives you no doubt that this is a progressive rock tune, blending jazz influences in a hard rock onslaught. One might wonder whether or not this was a Charles Mingus piece in the jazz moments (wait for a minute or so into into the track), if not for the electric guitar: “Wednesday night prayer meeting” meets Led Zeppelin.

Yet what is amazing is the way in which the entire album is not overtaken by this opening track. The other tracks on the album demonstrate the experimental range of this team led by Robert Fripp and including Greg Lake as vocalist at this point (soon to be the instrumental vocalist in Emerson, Lake and Palmer). The heavy-duty opening track is followed by an equally complicated but far more subtle tune, “I talk to the wind”, with its flute and clarinet duet, accompanied by the far less terrifying, perhaps comforting, vocals of Greg Lake.

The somehow calming funeral dirge, “Epitaph” (track 3), has a capturing, dramatic build as the world seemingly comes to an end in the final apocalypse. Here acoustic guitars meet somber clarinets and strings as Greg Lake soothingly (somehow) sings: “Confusion will be my epitaph, as I crawl a cracked and broken path. If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh. But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying, Yes I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying”.

Side two finds more experimentation in a lengthy tune (“Moonchild”) followed by the climactic “The court of the Crimson King”. This finale almost demands that you sing along (at least my conscience demands it). Here again there is a sophistication that beats even the most well-written progressive tune by the likes of Yes or ELP, and one could not ask more of the flute solo.

Wikipedia artricle on King Crimson and their albums here.

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From Pink Floyd’s mysteries to Led Zeppelin’s “Satanic” music

pharland — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:58:07 +0000

There are a number of posts about music, religion, and culture on my academic blog that may be of interest to readers of this one:

The times they are a changin’ endin’: Bob Dylan’s apocalypse

Satanic conspiracies of the 1970s and 1980s (dealing with the supposed and real cases of back-masking)

“Me and the Devil Blues”: Robert Johnson and the crossroads

Pink Floyd, Pompeii, and the Mysteries of Dionysos