The record is, tongue in cheek, Fripp’s most “commercial” offering and it begins with his comments to that effect. Just to show how “commercial” it was, Daryl Hall’s management and record label (RCA) refused to allow Hall’s voice to appear on several songs (in part) for fear of Exposure‘s lack of commercial appeal (on which see the Allmusic article here). I should say that a Fripp-infused Daryl Hall is a Daryl Hall I can listen too, and I’ll be looking for that Fripp-produced album this week.

Several things stand out from my repeated exposures to Fripp’s album in the past few days. The main thing is the way in which the entire album is united by theme, namely exposure to suffering. Interspersed throughout the album’s lyrics or spoken samples are either painful expressions of the inevitability of human suffering (as in Buddhism) or dire warnings of more suffering to come (as in the apocalypse of ancient Judaism or Christianity). This is done in an intriguing way both lyrically and musically.

There’s “You burn me up, I’m a cigarette” with a very down-to-earth expression of suffering in terms of relationships, “Exposure” with its terrifying screams, and Gabriel’s “Here comes the flood” with its apocalyptic warnings of the coming end (on flood imagery and ancient apocalypticism, go here; on Dylan’s use of similar flood imagery, go here). Spoken samples are also built into the songs, as when a scientist speaks of the coming of catastrophic floods in the near future and when someone (a follower of the Buddha?) speaks of the inevitability of suffering, at least in this world.

Perhaps most astounding is the way in which the music itself takes you on a roller-coaster ride that involves the listener in suffering and relief from suffering. The album runs the gamut of genres, from experimental new wave and heavy-metal to soothing ballads and ambient music (reminiscent of Fripp’s ambient work with Brian Eno — I’ll have to post on that soon, since I also managed to find a copy of the LP No Pussyfooting). Quite often, you are moved from harsh and jarring sounds in one track, to a soothing aural experience in the next. The heavy-metal style vocals of Peter Hammil are juxtaposed with the soothing R&B voice of Daryl Hall or the gentle (Joni-Mitchell like) vocals of Terre Roche on some tracks. Yet Roche’s screams of “exposure” found on the title track are both impossible to listen to and impossible to abandon, despite the torture. And one could not ask for a more calm and emotive performance of Peter Gabriel’s “Here comes the flood”, which is stripped of the somewhat over-produced sounds on Gabriel’s debut album and replaced with Gabriel and his piano along with the subtle guitar loops of Frippertronics. Also interspersed throughout are ambient songs which likewise use the Frippertronics tape-loop experimentation begun on Fripp and Eno’s No Pussyfooting.

This is one form of suffering I would recommend.

UPDATE: It seems that the vocal samples involving a scientist’s predictions of the coming flood and the quotation regarding the inevitability of suffering are both by John G. Bennett, a British scientist who combined his scientific views with Eastern religious ideas. Interesting combination.  He started up his own school to teach such things.

Bill Bruford, who is best known as the drummer of Yes in the early years and then of King Crimson (on which see my post here), comments on his involvement with Genesis once Phil Collins became lead singer in 1976 (after the departure of Gabriel, on which see my earlier post on Trick of the Tail). Bruford became Genesis’ drummer for the 1976 tour. Seeing that Bruford was, at one point, a member of all three of the most well-known progressive rock bands, it is interesting and somewhat humorous to hear his perspective.

First of all, he comments on how Genesis was viewed in the early days:

I think everybody in Yes and King Crimson thought that Genesis would never make it because they sounded like a combination of the two groups. We thought they might be too late — we’d been there and done it. We saw them along the lines of ‘Genesis are quite fun, but they’ve got a guitarist who sits down like Robert Fripp and a drummer who plays a bit like Bill; the Americans have already had that’. . . (p. 198)

Bruford also comments on the overall atmosphere of each of the three bands in connection with his own less orchestrated style:

I like to wing it a bit on stage, but Genesis were very, very precise. I’m much more accustomed to making it up as I’m going along. . . I’d learnt the tunes from the albums, and if it felt a little different from what Phil would have done, people would look at me and say, ‘Hey, Bill, could you make it sound a bit more like the record?’. . . [N]ot being much of the session type, I didn’t do terribly well at just delivering the parts. In fact, what finally drove me out of rock n’ roll was the repetition. That’s what had separated me from Yes. Why I had found King Crimson so attractive was because they were way more open: ‘Surprise us, go ahead, let’s improvise, terrific.’. . . (p. 198).

The mood in Genesis was such a contrast to the chaos of Yes, where nobody could agree what day of the week it was . . . How we in Yes ever got anything done, I still don’t know (p. 199).

Anyone who has heard an album like King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man knows what Bruford means by improvisation.

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:

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

]]> http://www.philipharland.com/VinylAddiction/2008/01/12/unexpected-rock-instruments-sitar/feed/ 1 http://www.philipharland.com/VinylAddiction/2008/01/05/motown-meets-bayou-creedence-clearwater-revivals-i-heard-it-through-the-grapevine/ http://www.philipharland.com/VinylAddiction/2008/01/05/motown-meets-bayou-creedence-clearwater-revivals-i-heard-it-through-the-grapevine/#comments Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:27:59 +0000 pharland http://www.philipharland.com/VinylAddiction/2008/01/05/motown-meets-bayou-creedence-clearwater-revivals-i-heard-it-through-the-grapevine/ 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.

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HM0b_M-ToU

The first time I heard the band The Call, it was a tape of Modern Romans (1983) that my friend Sue lent to me. The tune you are listening to now, if you pressed play above, is “The walls came down” from that second album (and, yes, that is Garth Hudson, seated, on keyboards). I remember thinking how raw, direct, and (often) angry the album sounded, and I was intrigued enough to start listening to more (I was about 16 at the time).

I still listen to The Call’s albums and wonder why it is that, unlike some of their contemporaries, the band has been largely forgotten. Clearly they were talented, and their brand of alternative rock involved an interesting combination of musical influences. They also evolved over their career, shifting from this more basic and direct sound to a more mature and well-constructed musical style.

There were also clear signs that a good number of musicians appreciated The Call. Peter Gabriel liked them enough to ask them to open for his “Shock the monkey” tour, as the Wikipedia article points out. Gabriel, Bono of U2, and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds all offered backing vocals on certain albums. Garth Hudson of The Band played keyboards on thefirst few albums, and Robbie Robertson played guitars on the Reconciled (1986) album, which is among the best contributions of The Call.

The album Modern Romans (1983 [out of print and never released on CD]) was a politically charged album about the decadence and decline of western society using the image of debauched Romans (see cover) as the analogy. As a student of the Roman empire, I would not exactly subscribe to this picture of the actual Romans (see the post Golden rule: Do unto others according to the “pagans” or Apart from vomitoriums and orgies, what did the Romans do for us?). But as an album concept and critique of western society, it works. The song you are listening to offers a critique of militarism and Cold War politics in particular with an allusion to the falling walls of Jericho built into the song title and chorus:

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down.
They’d all been warned
But the walls came down.
I don’t think there are any Russians
There ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks.
(by Michael Been, 1983)

Although the first three albums have not been released on CD and are out of print, The Walls Came Down: The Best of the Mercury Years (out of print), which can still be found, gathers together the best of these first three.

After a slightly disappointing synthesizer-heavy Scene Beyond Dreams (1984), several excellent albums were to follow beginning with Reconciled (1986) with the better known “Everywhere I go”. There is a sense in which this album represents the maturation of the band. The quieter and more atmospheric Into the Woods (1987) is also a favourite of mine. The lyrics here are still quite serious, intense, and, at times, introspective, as in “It could have been me”:

It could have been me
Lying in that jungle
Out in that heat
Fighting for my life
Dying for nothin’
Feeling a bullet
enter my soul
It could have been me
It could have been me
It could have been me
Living in that prison
Locked in a cage
Damning the walls
Damn the division
Wondering why it had to be me
Well, it could have been you. . .
(by Michael Been, 1987 Neeb Music / Tarka Music).

The follow-up, Let the Day Begin (1989) brought the band momentarily into the spotlight with the title-track, which was number one for a while. However, I find the final album of this era, Red Moon (1990), among the best by this largely forgotten band.

Listen while your read: Open up the Plant / Krauss “jukebox”

This album involves quite an unexpected team-up. Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin, joins one of the most important voices and fiddles in bluegrass music, Alison Krauss. There is a third artist, not mentioned on the cover, who really makes this entire album work so well: T-Bone Burnett. T-Bone Burnett is less known for his own solo work, which is a unique blend of cynical critique with an experimental twist on popular music, and better known for his production. Here he is both producer and musician, as on other albums he has produced (such as the soundtrack for Oh Brother Where Art Thou?).

Although I am not much of a bluegrass man myself, this very well produced and performed album has certainly caught my attention and I’ve been listening to it a lot lately. There are several things that make the album so intriguing (beyond the fact that the lead singer of Led Zeppelin is involved). Perhaps foremost is the variety that is here despite a coherency relating to the genres of bluegrass and American folk. The team performs a range of pieces from the 1950s to the present, including a tune by the Everly Brothers (“Gone gone gone” [1964]), a piece by the Byrd’s Gene Clark (“Polly come home” [1969]), and a remake of a Plant-Page tune, “Please read the letter” (1998).

Although the album sounds quite consistently like bluegrass or folk, there is a nice range of musical styles within this framework, thanks largely to T-Bone Burnett’s work in assembling this band and thanks to his production. Some songs are played solely acoustic (e.g. “Sister Rosetta goes before us”) while others are high on reverb. Some approach rockabilly (“Gone gone gone”) while others have a Celtic feel (“Trampled rose”).

Variety is also there in terms of the vocal focus of each song, with some sung solo by either Plant or Krauss, others as full duets, and still others with one taking the lead while the other backs. The vocal tones of Plant and Krauss blend very well and complement one another in unexpected ways. One rarely hears Plant singing so gently as on this album in tunes like “Killing the blues”, and yet there are others where the vocal range of a Zeppelin album are approached, as in “Fortuneteller”. In “Nothin’”, Plant gently sings a slow-moving tune backed by an unexpected heavy electric guitar and fiddle accompaniment (by Krauss).

There is also humour thrown in at times, as when the innocent-sounding voice of Alison Krauss sings “Let your loss be your lesson” solo:

Once I had myself a good woman
But I just didn’t treat her right
I was always leaving
Living the party life
True love was waiting for me
I was much too blind to see (© Hillgreen Music [BMI]).

The hymn-like “Your long journey” completes the album well with an acoustic sound and banjo — a hymn-singing Robert Plant. The liner notes appropriately joke about teaching an “old dog” new tricks.

The official site for the album is here.

A 1982 live version of Rhythm of the Heat from YouTube

By haunted, I don’t mean in the halloween sense, but in the sense of losing your self entirely to the spirits, of losing your very soul. One of the most haunting and experiential songs I know of is Peter Gabriel’s “Rhythm of the Heat” on his fourth album (also known as Security; © 1982 The David Geffen Company). The low quality live version are listening to now may not do justice to the song, but it is better than nothing. You’ll have to listen to a high quality version of the entire piece (preferably on your own in the complete dark and with the volume considerably high) to understand the full emotional effect of Gabriel’s brilliant work here.

The complete tune opens up slowly with an initial cry by Gabriel and some mysterious distorted voices. The drum beat begins to slowly build at this point, moving towards the first climactic cries of “The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. . . The rhythm has my soul!!” (© 1982 Peter Gabriel Ltd).

Now the drums are incredibly heavy but still slow, backed by a repetitive chant of “the rhythm of the heat” that evokes spirits, or is it demons. The bass and drum combination is now so intense that it brings chills. There’s a hesitation in the song as it quietens, seemingly bringing relief from the intensity. Quietly: “Smash the radio. . . smash the watch. . . smash the camera (cannot steal away the spirits). The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. The rhythm has my soul!” Following on this second wild, piercing, sustained cry, the song now breaks out into an onslaught of African style drumming (by the Ekome Dance Company) that seems to never end. You cannot escape it. The rhythm has your soul.

In some ways, the Surdo and Ghanaian drum sections in this piece indicate Gabriel’s future direction into world music, which would climax, in a way, in his soundtrack, Passion (1989) for The Last Temptation of Christ. That album is saturated with the sounds of the Middle East in particular, but also Africa. Gabriel ultimately founded a record company and studio, called Real World, devoted to promoting bands and music from around the globe, particularly from “developing” countries.

Where did this haunting song, “The Rhythm of the Heat”, come from?

Gabriel’s song is based, in large part, on psychologist C.G. Jung’s autobiographical description of a nocturnal ritual dance (the n’goma) among villagers in the Sudan (in Africa). Carl Jung (1875-1961), as you may or may not know, was an influential psychologist and student of Sigmund Freud. In the autobiographical interviews collected in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), Jung outlines his own fears of the local villagers in a particular area of the Sudan, that, to him, seemed less welcoming than those in previous African villages.

Sixty men, along with women and children, gathered together and lit fires before beginning what Jung labels “savage singing, drumming, and trumpeting” (p. 271). Jung expresses that “I did not know whether I ought to feel pleased or anxious about this mass display”, a statement which reveals a tension to which I turn below. So the uncomfortable Jung decided to join in the dancing, however hesitantly, and was somewhat comforted to notice the approval he received from the villagers for doing so.

As time passed, Jung reports, “the rhythm of the dance and the drumming accelerated” (p. 271). Here Jung begins to reveal his fears in noting that “the natives easily fall into a virtual state of possession. That was the case now. As eleven o’clock approached, their excitement began to get out of bounds. . . The dancers were being transformed into a wild horde, and I became worried about how it would end” (p. 271).

In reading these autobiographical remembrances that inspired Peter Gabriel’s song, I was struck by the tension within Jung’s own description of his experiences in the Sudan. On the one hand, his trip was ostensibly one of studying the human psyche in what he considered its more “primitive”, not-yet-conscious form, something he describes as a “primal darkness” that will only meet light with the dawning of psychological consciousness (something he believed was possessed by the psyches of Europeans). And so Jung seemingly explains away his fear of the possessive tribal dance as a fear of dying by being accidentally stabbed by the swords of the fully involved tribal members in their ecstatic, “possessed” stage. It is a down to earth fear, so he claims.

On further investigation, on the other hand, it seems that his fear may be a fear of becoming part of this collective psychological experience, a concept that he himself had developed in reference to some supposed universal human psychological makeup, and a fear of losing his soul to the possession of the tribal beat. This, I believe, is what Gabriel saw as well. For Jung concludes his story of the tribal dance with a statement of his own profound, personal experiences in Africa. For, as Jung states:

“I had undertaken my African adventure with the secret purpose of escaping from Europe and its complex problems. . . The trip revealed itself as less an investigation of primitive psychology. . . than a probing into the rather embarrassing question: What is going to happen to Jung the psychologist in the wilds of Africa? . . . It became clear to me that this study had been not so much an objective scientific project as an intensely personal one, and that any attempt to go deeper into it touched every possible sore spot in my own psychology” (p. 273).

Here, then, was the “advanced” European academic in fear of having his soul stolen by the “rhythm of the heat”, and yet unable to come to terms with his own fear and unable to analyze himself fully, let alone the supposedly “primitive” villagers.

Happy Halloween.

Peter Gabriel’s official website can be found here. Real World Records can be found here.

Buy at Amazon

In Rainbows is a very highly produced album with great attention to detail, something that may make reproduction in live shows a trial for the band, I would imagine. The result of this production is a very clean and sharp sound, with percussion, guitar, and other instrumentation often jumping out at the listener in stark ways. Although there’s a bit of ambience as well, it’s hard not to pay complete attention to most tunes on this album when they are playing — this is no music for airports!

Despite having played this album a number of times, I still wonder what’s next as I listen, simply because of the rather non-traditional structures of the songs and the interesting juxtapositions of the different instruments and sounds, both acoustic and electronic, harmonic and dissonant. This is what makes the overall aural experience very intriguing. I sit on the edge of my seat for most tracks on this album, even though I do find the high level of production sometimes lacking in warmth or even emotionally sterile at times (but warmth is not likely what Radiohead was going for on some of these tracks).

The sterility I mentioned may well be intentional. The running lyrical themes of this album, which are also echoed by the music, are futility, darkness, and despair — the end, the singer’s end, is near in just about every tune. If he is not falling off the edge of the earth or going to hell, he’s dead from the neck up or trapped in the prison of his body. The album evokes phantoms and there are times, as in “Nude”, when the vocals are best described as the cries of displaced angels.

When you are listening to “Weird Fishes/Apeggi” it is truly the sounds of the depths that you hear, and Mephistopheles (Satan) is indeed grabbing at you to bring you down to destruction, as in the finale, “Videotape”. Despite the haunting darkness of this album there are moments of light, and the finishing lines suggest that light wins out: “No matter what happens now, I won’t be afraid. Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.”

There are a number of fast-paced songs here, including “15 Step”, “Bodysnatchers”, and “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi”. It is here that one senses the feel of The Bends at times. The solemn and haunting “15 Step” combines heavy drumming with synthesizers in a sort of sombre harmony. In “Bodysnatchers”, distorted guitar gives way to a whining guitar background reminiscent of tunes on U2′s Achtung Baby.

The slower songs reflect an interesting range of sounds from one track to the next. A highlight of the album, in my view, is “All I need” with its slow cello-like sounds juxtaposed with distorted synthesizers. This gives way to a piano and violin-sounding climax with heavy drumming. Lyrically, here the persona of the singer is a moth trying to get out of the darkness and towards the light, and the music itself suggests some hope in this regard. Also very effective, musically, is “Reckoner”, where the interplay between lead guitar (played as bass) and distant tambourine-like percussion provides the ideal background to the gentle vocal tones that climax in an ambient string orchestral arrangement before returning to the beginning again.

Radiohead’s “Jigsaw” combines acoustic guitar and funky bass in a slow build that leads to a full sound once again more reminiscent of The Bends or OK Computer. Here the statement is made: “What’s the point of instruments. Words are a sawed-off shotgun”. Overall, Radiohead’s In Rainbows proves quite the opposite. It is the rich mix of instrumentation and juxtaposition of various sounds that make it possible to withstand the darkness (or dodge the shotgun) of the album and come out alive. I would recommend this album, as you may have guessed.

Buy the album

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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Listen while your read: Open up the Springsteen Magic webpage in a new window (then click on a track)

In some ways, Bruce Springsteen’s latest album, Magic, which sees the reuniting of the E. Street Band, comes at a high point in Springsteen’s recent career, and this means there are high expectations. Three recent contributions contribute to these high expectations.

First, just recently Springsteen had a very well done solo album of mostly acoustic-based songs, Devil’s and Dust (2005). In many ways, that album represents Springsteen’s great skill in writing and performing emotionally direct and vivid tunes, and in character sketching (on which see my discussion of Welcome to Asbury Park, N.J.). Second, Magic is also the first E. Street Band album since the very coherent and moving album of 2002, The Rising. That album did an amazing job of looking at a crucial and tragic event, 9/11, from a variety of perspectives without terribly oversimplifying the meaning of events such as that. Third, Magic follows up on the foot-stomping, whisky-drinking tribute album to the folk music of Pete Seeger: We Shall Overcome (2006).

How does the newest album match up to this trio of somewhat diverse contributions? There is a sense in which Magic is The Rising part 2, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, Magic is clearly a solid, well-performed rock album that is superior to most other efforts in this area, and I would therefore recommend it. On the other, there are some ways in which this album does not live up to the high expectations and lacks a coherency in theme when compared to The Rising.

There are a number of lively rock tunes on this album beyond “Radio nowhere”, the first single. “You’ll be comin’ down”, “Livin’ in the future”, “I’ll work for your love”, and “Last to die” are all somewhat fast-paced and well-performed tunes with some nuance. However, there are other upbeat pieces that seem clouded. In particular, “Gypsy biker” is difficult to listen to or discern. I’m all for well-placed, heavy percussion within the overall structure of a song, but in this case the drumming assault seems without meaning and becomes annoying to my ears as the song progresses. Springsteen’s vocals and any other instrumentation begin to disappear in these murky waters. “Last to die” is apparently a song of despair with little hope (other songs supply that) which asks: “Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake. . . Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break. Who’ll be the last to die”.

There are also some slower paced songs that provide limited variety here and highlight the sounds of piano and (yes, this is an E. Street Band album) chimes (which can also be heard on the livelier songs). “Girls in their summer clothes” is an enjoyable series of vignettes of small town life. The title track, “Magic”, is a slow moving (perhaps too slow) dark song, primarily of despair. The highlight among these, in my view, is the final “Devil’s Arcade” with its slow build. Here the partially despairing lyrics are countered by the clearly hopeful overall effect of the music.

As with many Springsteen albums, including The Rising, the lyrics are stories of both despair and hope, because they are stories of real life. Though I have not yet been captured by the poetry in the way I have been with some of the acoustic albums including Devils and Dust, the writing on this album is generally good.

That’s all I’ll say for now, and perhaps I’ll supplement this review as I listen to this album for a longer stretch. Often my opinions change with more listens. Music I don’t like on the first few listens sometimes become my favourite down the road, and vice versa.

Roberta Flack is perhaps best known for her influential performance of the song “Killing me softly with his song” back in 1973, recently re-covered by the Fugees (if 1997 is “recent” to anyone else). Flack’s early work, before the years of disco set in and had their deleterious affect, is particularly impressive in terms of her vocal performance and the overall emotional effect of the music. The music really captures you and brings you along for a ride. Flack injects new life into the songs she covers. (Flack herself did not write the music or lyrics, in the early days at least).

I recently picked up her second album, appropriately called Second Chapter (© 1970 Atlantic). And, no, I did not listen to it when I was one year old — but I do now! Flack’s warm, welcoming voice is a pleasure to listen to, and the jazz-soul instrumentation is excellently performed and produced on this album (in other words, the tasteful and understated cover of the album is indicative of the quality overall). Her version of Bob Dylan’s “Just like a woman” is a nice change from the original, as much as I appreciate Dylan.

The song you are listening to now is definitely the outstanding performance on the album, however. “Reverend Lee” was originally written and performed by Gene McDaniel’s in the early 1970s (read a story about him on the Wire). But Flack’s version makes all the difference!

This song tells the tale of a southern pastor struggling with lustful thoughts (in a dream) and, ultimately at least, winning the battle. Here lust is personified as a young woman, “Satan’s daughter”. The association of women with Satan and notions of the woman as temptress unfortunately have a long history in western civilization, which you can read a bit about here (including a reference to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused”).
Here are some of the lyrics from “Reverend Lee”:

Reverend Lee, he went to the water
And he prayed to the Lord about old Satan’s daughter
It seems in a dream, child, while he lay sleepin’
She climbed in his bed, starts rubbing and weepin’
Oh, she was twistin’ and turnin’
She was beggin’ and pleadin’
lovin’ and burnin’, pantin’ and breathin’, haah haah
. . .
Reverend Lee, he lifted his arms high
Said, “Heavenly father, take me home to the sky.”
He said, “Lord please don’t test me, not down where she touched me.”
“Oh, my mind is so hazy, Lord, my body is hungry”, oh yeah.
God rolled the thunder, then hurled the lightnin’.
He seemed to be angry, oh, so it was frightenin’.
Thunder grew louder, louder, darkened conditions
Just then a voice said, “God cannot be petitioned.”
Just then the devil emerged from the water, and he said in a dry voice,
“Your God will not barter.”
Reverend Lee ran screamin’ from the water
He was hotly pursued by old Satan’s daughter
“Reverend Lee”, she said. “Reverend Lee, Reverend Lee . . . oh do it to me”.
“Reverend Lee do it to me” (by Eugene McDaniels; Longport, BMI).

Wikipedia has a useful article on Flack, along with a full discography. Roberta Flack has her own official website here.

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One band that very few seem to remember (at least in North America), even if they were teenagers in the 1980s, is The Alarm (full discography). The Alarm was a contemporary of both U2 and Simple Minds, and there was a fair bit of interaction among members of all three of these bands in the early 80s. Bono was known to appear on stage at Alarm concerts, and vice versa for Mike Peters, the lead singer of The Alarm. The Alarm opened for U2′s War tour in 1983. There was a sense in which The Alarm was Wales’ U2, Simple Minds was Scotland’s U2, and, well, U2 was Ireland’s U2.

All three bands were punk-influenced (as is clear in the Alarm tune you are listening to now and the cover of Declaration [1984] to your right) with a touch of new wave and a Joy-Division-like somberness at times. All formed and began recording in the late 1970s or early 80s. All were played on “alternative” stations, such as CFNY (now “the Edge”) here in the Toronto area.

By 1983, both U2 and the Alarm were known for their politically-charged anthems. U2 and the Alarm were also known as excellent, lively concert performers. I can remember how overwhelmed I felt at one particular Alarm concert at Massey Hall when I was about 16 or 17. The energy at an Alarm concert was hard to match!

Although there are similarities among the three, each nonetheless had its distinctive character (and I’m not just talking about the Alarm’s regretful hair-dos). While U2 went on to mass stardom and Simple Minds continues to have radio play (on retro stations) as a result of their hits (such as “Alive and Kicking”), The Alarm is largely forgotten here in North America. This is the case even though Mike Peters has continued to record both under his own name and with bands such as Coloursound, along with members of the Cult (Bill Duffy) and the Mission (Craig Adams). Most recently, Peters has now formed a new Alarm (official site here — a video will start playing), called “Alarm MMVI”, which charted in the UK with “Superchannel”. The loss of memory of the Alarm is unjustified in some ways.

Listen as you read: “Eye of the Hurricane” (audio snippet)

The Alarm quite quickly progressed from the very basic, punk-influenced marches (and, yes, you can march to just about every early Alarm track) of 1983′s self-titled EP to a more well-refined alternative sound by 1987′s Eye of the Hurricane (© IRS). There are also continuities, though, in the sense that from beginning to end the Alarm had an intriguing sound marked by a combination of both acoustic and electric sounds (harmonica was not uncommon). The new incarnation of the Alarm XXVI harkens back to the 1983 sound more so than 1987, by the way, with its more direct, garage-band sound.

In some ways, the Strength (1985) album was a clear transition from the earlier, more basic sound which was still heard in “Sixty-Eight Guns” (on Declaration [1984]), to the more refined and produced sound of Eye of the Hurricane. This fourth album seemed promising in breaking the band to a larger audience, and it did so to some degree. The single “Rain in the summertime” which you are listening to now did get considerable radio play at the time and hit #6 on the US charts, according to the Wikipedia article. It was a bit harder to get Alarm concert tickets as a result. The album is an interesting combination of acoustic and electric as expected, and yet synthesizers were added and stand out quite prominently here (understandable for 1987). Two more, commercially less-successful albums followed (Change [1989] and Raw [1991]) before the group disbanded. As mentioned, Mike Peters continues to record but is basically unknown in North America, and he has remixed all of the Alarm CDs, adding b-sides and other rareties to each.

UPDATE: Little did I know, but it seems that there have been two, recent documentary-style reality shows by the BBC that follow the daily family life and struggles (including the struggle with cancer) of Mike Peters and his wife and two children. Go to the Alarm “news” section: The Peters’ Family BBC Documentary.

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Origins

Progressive rock’s origins are primarily in the late 1960s. Prog rock’s climax came in the mid-1970s before it lost out to the flood of punk and new wave (as well as pop) in the late 1970s and early 80s. While progressive rock was complicated and well-thought-out music that also required a high level of musical ability to perform, punk was raw, direct and emotional (though also involving creative artistry nonetheless, of course). In the rock family, prog rock was the twenty-something year old brother with musical training and an even keel; punk was the sixteen year old yelling what he felt and angrily bashing holes in the wall with his guitar.

The two were clearly at odds in many ways and there could only be one winner, at least in the short run. Progressive rock waned. Punk took the short-term spotlight and punk-influenced new wave began heavily influencing pop music generally. Punk, new wave, and pop all shared in common a simple structure and, sometimes, simple lyrics. In some cases prog rock bands decided to shed some of the progressive elements and changed their style to some degree in order to adapt and maintain attention in the pop scene (e.g. Yes’ 90125 ["Owner of a Lonely Heart"] and Genesis albums following Abacab [e.g. "Invisible Touch"]).

Progressive rock is:

Progressive (of course)

Most who apply the term progressive to this style of rock mean that it is musically creative and experimental and that it moved rock forward into new, unexplored areas. One of the main ways in which it was progressive was in its blend or fusion of various types of music and instrumentation.

Fusion

Progressive rock is a fusion of rock with outside influences, particularly classical music, jazz, and blues. In some cases prog rock artists were trained in classical or jazz music and in others they simply appreciated such music and developed interesting ways of incorporating the styles, tempos and overall feel of classical and jazz with a rock twist.

Often this also meant the incorporation of musical instruments beyond the typical rock guitar-bass-drum combo, and sometimes full orchestras were used. The organ and synthesized equivalents were central for several progressive rock bands, including the Moody Blues and Yes. This fusion of influences resulted in quite sophisticated musical structures. Complicated time-changes are especially common.

Thematic

Progressive rock is thematic in at least two ways.

On the one hand, frequently an entire album is (or several albums are) united, in terms of lyrics and music, by a common theme, sometimes known as a “concept album”. The Moody Blues’ groundbreaking Days of Future Past (1967), for instance, was based on an idea for a stage show about one man’s entire day from morning to night. Several Genesis albums of the Gabriel era harken back to idealistic, pastoral images of medieval England, for instance. And numerous Yes albums orbit around an astral fantasy world. Many other progressive rock albums have a fantasy world as the setting for a story they tell.

On the other hand, prog rock is also thematic in that there are variations on a musical theme. As in classical and jazz music, a particular simple tune or chord progression that appears early in a song or album echoes in subsequent sections or tracks with more sophisticated musicality. Genesis’ A Trick of the Tail, for instance, begins and ends with the same basic tune which is also echoed in more subtle ways in various other tracks.

Quite often a prog rock song will be rather lengthy (say 10 minutes or more) with multiple parts and a dramatic build both within that track and throughout the album as a whole. Songs often blend into one another (rather than having those few seconds of silence between tracks–this did not make it particularly radio-friendly). These qualities often go along with the story-telling and theme-building aspects of the music.

That will do for now, and I can always supplement this in the future. In the mean time, please feel free to post your own comments or questions on what is progressive rock.

I was browsing through the overload bins at the local record store and came across an intriguing cover with a lone, long-haired guitarist amidst a sea of dried mud. This image caught my attention and I began to wonder whether it was worth spending the .10 to experiment with this one–of course it was!

Shawn Phillips, who to me was an unknown when I picked up the album, was a platinum selling artist with this album in 1970. After looking him up on google, I now see that he continues to produce records alongside his full-time career as a fireman (Wikipedia article here, official website here). Phillips grew frustrated with record companies in the early 70s and decided to do something else with the majority of his time, despite his clear musical talent. The Wikipedia article also notes that he was originally cast as the main lead in Jesus Christ Superstar, but could not fill this role due to touring at the time.

Second Contribution (©1970 Dick James Music Limited) is a very well structured and performed piece, blending a variety of genres of music from basic folk to rock, blues and a little bit of jazz. There is a sense in which one could choose to categorize it as “progressive rock”. Phillip’s vocal range is also notable.

The opening piece (“She was waitin’ for her mother at the station in Torino and you know I love you baby but it’s getting too heavy to laugh“–his song titles can go on) which blends into the second (“Keep on”) illustrates the more full-blown blend of folk rock and orchestral arrangements that characterize a couple of tracks on the album. But I do not find this overdone. There is still a good balance in the music and we do not hear the “wall of sound” that was characteristic of Spector’s orchestral overdubs, for instance. The song builds in a slow yet sure way to its climax when it promptly transitions to the next track (when “Mama, I’m coming home” begins–here I have faded out the song shortly after this transition).

Listen while you read: The ballad of Casey Deiss (audio snippet)

There are also very subtle folk pieces such as “The ballad of Casey Deiss” which incorporates a progression of instruments, one by one (flute, bass, cello, vibraphone–it seems), alongside Phillips and his acoustic guitar. There is an overall calming, medieval atmosphere to the piece and Phillips’ vocals are permitted to stand out. Other pieces on the album further confirm Phillip’s creativity and musical intuition. The album as a whole, with its tracks blending together, has a coherency that is not often found in albums today, notwithstanding the likes of Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible.

I highly recommend this forgotten (to me at least) album.

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Ok, I’ll admit it: I’m biased and the winner is a foregone conclusion. Through the luck of the draw, I recently ended up with two jazz guitar records from the same year (the first for ¢.10 and the other for a mere buck–both in excellent condition with almost no unwanted ticks or crackle).

In one corner (I know I’m mixing fighting metaphors but you get the idea) is George Benson with his album Breezin’ (1976, © Warner Bros. Records Inc.). In terms of Jazz guitar (of the easy listening brand) Benson is perhaps best known for the title track “Breezin‘” . His success with this and other tunes on this album made his crossover to R & B quite smooth and his albums increasingly included lyrics with Benson singing (see the wiki article here).

I don’t think any guitarist familiar with jazz would doubt Benson’s skill and consistency in playing, but this album is definitely heavily marked by its time and the string arrangements seem out of place. It brings me back to childhood in some dentist’s or doctor’s waiting room, in some ways, and you might even suspect you are in an elevator as it now plays. It does have some funky charm, however. In my opinion, Benson will not win this duel.

Listen while your read: “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” (audio snippet)

In the other corner is Jeff Beck with his Jazz fusion album Wired (1976, © CBS Inc.). As a rock guitarist, Jeff Beck has a good pedigree, one could say (official Jeff Beck website). When Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck took the position and he was soon joined by Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin fame) (see the Rollingstone Yardbirds biography and discography here). The Yardbirds’ music can be considered a sort of psychedelic form of R & B. Beck had difficulty getting along with others in the band and was soon onto his solo career.

Beck primarily went the instrumental root and Wired was his second solo album. As a Jazz fusion album, this one rocks and the range of Beck’s guitar playing is outstanding. Among the calmer tunes is Beck’s excellent cover of Charles Mingus’ “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat“. The range of sounds that Beck can produce with a guitar are particularly noticeable here. The groove is definitely there as well.

Beck’s Wired will definitely remain a staple in my listening while Breezin’ may not (I haven’t taken the time to remove any ticks from Benson’s track as you’ll notice, which is a hint).

Who do you think wins the duel? Post a comment (top of entry) and let me know.

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