"Itchycoo Park" (Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane) Copyright 1967 United Artists Music Limited, EMI United Partnership Limited
Small Faces are one of the all-time great British bands from the 1960’s but they never got the attention, success or respect they deserved. (Some of that was due to self-inflicted damage, but still…) Their biggest hit was “Itchycoo Park“, 2:45 of psychedelic pop perfection. All 4 members of the band shine, and engineer Glyn Johns gets to introduce the world to the sound of flanging. Feel inclined to blow your mind? Check out this episode.
“Itchycoo Park” (Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane) Copyright 1967 United Artists Music Limited, EMI United Partnership Limited
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, everyone, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, part of the Pantheon family of podcasts. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we listen to it together, uncovering all the little moments, those special touches that make it a great song. You don’t need to be a musical expert here, we don’t get too technical. All you need is a love for music, and you’ll fit right in here.
On this episode, we are revisiting the Small Faces, because I really do love this band, and I think they’re criminally underrated, certainly here in the US.
The mid 1960’s were an amazing time for music: lots of change, experimentation, and invention. The psychedelic sounds of this era are this perfect blend of adventure, exploration, and naivete. There’s an “Alice in Wonderland” feel to all of it. And one of the best examples of this is “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces.
We talked about the Small Faces before on this podcast, back on episode #54, and their song “Tin Soldier”, so I won’t rehash their biography again. You can go back and listen to that episode.
But for a quick refresher, Small Faces was formed in 1965 by guitarist/vocalist Steve Marriott and bass player Ronnie Lane, with Kenny Jones on drums and Ian McLagan on keyboards. Like other British bands of the era, The Who, for example, they started by playing covers of American blues and R&B artists. But by 1966, they were writing their own songs, primarily composed by Marriott and Lane. “Itchycoo Park” was their 10th single overall, but only their second single for their new record label, Immediate Records, who allowed them a lot more freedom in the studio to experiment.
The song was released in August 1967, the height of the “Summer of Love”, and it reached number 3 on the UK charts, number 16 in the US and number 1 in Canada.
The song was written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane. It all started with an idea from Ronnie Lane, inspired by Oxford, England, and a park near where Marriott and Lane lived. Exactly which park is a question, because both Lane and Marriott referred to different parks over time. According to Lane, the initial musical idea came from a hymn called “God Be In My Head”.
See if you can catch how that melody influenced this song.
They structured “Itchycoo Park” as a dialogue between a normal average “straight” person and someone who was “tuned-in” and enlightened. That’s pretty much the psychedelic sixties in a nutshell.
Marriott and Lane are credited as producers on the track, with Glenn Johns as the engineer.
The song begins with an acoustic guitar in the left channel. Pretty quickly after that, Ronnie Lane’s bass joins in on the right channel, followed by the drums also on the right and the organ on the left. I think there’s a piano in there as well, but it’s pretty low in the mix. And that’s it for the intro– pretty short. The vocals come in right there.
Steve Marriott is one of the all-time great soulful belters, just one of the ballsiest singers. He influenced generations of vocalists, from Robert Plant and Paul Rogers right up through Chris Robinson of the Black Crows and beyond. He’s on my list of the all-time greatest singers. I just love his voice. But, you know, he could also hold back and sing more gently, as he does here.
A couple of other things I want to point out before we move on: Let’s remove the vocals and listen to just the backing track here. You can hear Ian McLagan’s organ part a lot clearer and especially listen to the bass. Ronnie Lane had this really unique loping style of playing that’s really on display here.
All right, let’s get to the second part of the verse. This is the part where the dialogue between the two characters comes in, as we mentioned before, with the backing vocals from Ronnie Lane; Ronnie Lane playing the part of the straight man and Steve Marriott being, well, Steve Marriott.
That’s more of the classic Marriott vocal there. This leads us into the chorus. “It’s all too beautiful”– the ultimate vision of the sixties if only that were.
There’s this little descending keyboard lick that’s kind of central to that whole chorus.
Now this brings us to the bridge. This was Steve Marriott’s biggest writing contribution to the song. He wrote this part, but what really makes it interesting is the way it was recorded. This was one of the very first records to use the effect that would become known as “flanging”. You can hear it on the vocal and the drum track.
A recording engineer named George Chkiantz is generally credited with inventing this flanging technique. He showed it to Glyn Johns, who used it on this recording. Eventually, they developed a way to do this electronically. And of course, now, like everything, you can do it digitally. I’m using a software plugin to do it to my voice right now. But back in 1967, the only way to do this was manually. Two tape machines were synchronized together, playing the same song. And by slightly slowing down one of the tapes, usually by placing your thumb on the flange of one of the tape reels, hence the name flanging, you would get this effect, which would then be recorded onto a third tape machine. There was a lot of work required to get this sound.
So we’ve been listening to the stereo version of this song because I think the stereo version provides a little better differentiation on the individual parts. But on the original mono mix of this track, I think the flanging is a little more obvious. So let’s just hear this chorus from the mono mix.
Let’s go back to the stereo version and hear the second verse. This features more of the back and forth between the lead and the backing vocals.
Let’s listen to just the vocal track.
The BBC initially banned this song because they were concerned that “I get high” was a drug reference. But the band said, “Oh, no, this song, it’s about a park. Of course, we’re talking about swinging on a swing. You know, when you’re swinging, you try to get higher and higher. That’s what we meant.” They were shocked – shocked – that you would think this song was about drugs. And the BBC bought that story.
Here’s the second time around for the bridge, and this time I think the flanging is even more prominent.
That “Ha” that Marriott puts in there. From here, they repeat the chorus until the song fades out, and they apply the flanging effect to it as well. Steve Marriott, as he always does, sounds great here.
Small Faces – “Itchycoo Park”
The small faces recorded dozens of songs that I think stand up to the best British bands of that decade. The Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Kinks… The Small Faces released stuff that was just as good, in some cases even better.
But fate just didn’t really go their way and to be honest, they never really got their act together. There was a self-destructive streak there, especially with Steve Marriott, which would only get worse throughout his life. As we’ve discussed on this podcast before, Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991. He was 44. Ronnie Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died in 1997, age 51. Keyboard player Ian McLagan had a long career as an in-demand session musician and sideman until he died of a stroke in 2014. Drummer Kenny Jones went on to play with The Who, and at the time of this recording, he’s still with us and continues to oversee the legacy of the Small Faces.
If you’d like to explore more Small Faces, there’s a ton of compilation albums out there. Some are better than others. My favorite is one called “The Autumn Stone”. I would start there. There’s also one called “The Ultimate Collection”. That one’s pretty good, too.
Thanks for hanging out here on this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. As you probably know by now, new episodes of this show come out twice a month, so I’ll be back in about two weeks with a brandy new episode. If you can’t bear to wait for the next episode, you can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or just look for us in your favorite podcast app.
And if that’s not enough, there are plenty more music-related shows that you should check out right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. We’d love it if you’d leave a review of the show wherever it is that you listen, just post a comment there. You can also find us on Facebook, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, you’ll find our page.
And the most important thing you can do if you’d like to support the show is to just recommend the show to your friends, because your word-of-mouth carries a lot more weight than any promotion I can do. So, as always, thanks for that.
And thanks for listening to this episode on “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces.
"The Tracks Of My Tears" (William "Smokey" Robinson, Warren Moore, Marvin Tarplin) Copyright 1965 Jobete Music Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
William “Smokey” Robinson was the man behind many of Motown’s greatest hits– not just the tracks he recorded himself with The Miracles, he also wrote many hits for other Motown acts. But perhaps his greatest achievement was “Tracks Of My Tears“. It was selected by the RIAA & NEA as one of the 365 Greatest Songs of the 20th Century; it’s on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll, and Rolling Stone magazine named it The Greatest Motown Song Of All Time. Join us for this episode as we explore this masterpiece.
“The Tracks Of My Tears” (William “Smokey” Robinson, Warren Moore, Marvin Tarplin) Copyright 1965 Jobete Music Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
TRANSCRIPT:
Every good song tells a story. The story is often all there in the lyrics; sometimes you have to use a little imagination to fill in the gaps, sometimes the story is mostly in the rhythm or the groove. Sometimes the melody tells you everything you need to know. Either way, a song takes you on a journey. Sometimes inward, sometimes outward. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, where we look at how these songs, these stories, are put together and trace the steps along those journeys.
My name is Brad Page. I’m your tour guide on these musical trips. You don’t have to be any kind of musical expert here. Just open your ears and come along for the ride.
“Shop Around”, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”, “Ooh Baby, Baby”, “Going To A Go Go”, “I Second That Emotion, “Tears Of A Clown”. All of these were huge hits from Motown, all written or co-written by Smokey Robinson, and all performed by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. That’s quite a track record. But if I had to pick just one Smokey Robinson song, my favorite would have to be “Tracks Of My Tears”. Three minutes of pop perfection. On this episode, we’ll be tracing the “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
William Robinson Junior was born in Detroit on February 19, 1940. His uncle Claude gave him the nickname Smokey Joe because little William loved cowboy movies and that was his cowboy nickname. By the time he was twelve, he dropped the Joe, but Smokey stuck. He and his friends at Detroit’s Northern High School, Pete Moore, Ron White, Sonny Rogers and his cousin Bobby Rogers, formed a doo wop group, first called The Five Chimes and later The Matadors.
Smokey’s mother had died when he was ten years old and his sister Jerry became his legal guardian. Jerry was a jazz lover and turned Smokey onto singers like Sarah Vaughn, who became a big influence on Smokey.
I can definitely hear the influence in Smokey’s vocal style there. In 1957, Sonny Rogers left the band and he was replaced by Sonny’s sister, Claudette.
With a woman now in the group, they changed their name to The Miracles. Smokey and Claudette would eventually get married. Right around that time, they had an audition for Jackie Wilson’s manager. They didn’t get that gig, but they did meet Barry Gordy at that same audition– a chance meeting that would literally influence the course of music history. Gordy became their manager and producer, and he nurtured Smokey’s songwriting. When Gordy started Motown Records, The Miracles were one of the first artists he signed. In 1960, they released “Shop Around”, which became their first big hit, and Motown’s first million selling record.
A lot more hits would follow, including “Mickey’s Monkey” and “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”.
And of course there was “Ooh Baby Baby”.
By then, guitarist named Marvin Tarplin had joined as an unofficial “Miracle”, and became one of Smokey’s key collaborators. Besides The Miracles, Smokey was writing and producing records for other Motown artists, like Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. By 1965, with the release of the “Going To A Go Go” album, the name of the group was changed to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And Claudette stopped performing with the band. Though she would record with them in the studio, no more live gigs.
“Tracks Of My Tears” was released as a single, and it’s included on the “Going To A Go Go” album. The track was recorded on January 20, 1965. It was written by Smokey Robinson, Warren Moore and Marvin Tarplin. In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Tracks Of My Tears” as the greatest Motown song of all time.
Now, as to who actually played on the track, well, that’s tricky, because I have a hard time finding documentation of who exactly plays on a lot of these old Motown tracks. Of course, it’s well known that Motown had its own in-house band, the Funk Brothers. And if you’ve never seen the documentary about the Funk Brothers, “Standing In The Shadows of Motown”, go watch it right now. It is essential viewing. But the Funk Brothers was a conglomeration of many players; multiple drummers, guitarists, horn players, etcetera. And determining which guys played on which record, well, I found it really hard to do. So here are just some of the key players in the Funk Brothers, who probably played on this track.
You had Earl Van Dyke, who was not only a keyboard player, but also the bandleader. On guitars, there were Robert White, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina. James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt on bass—I’m pretty sure it’s James Jamerson on this track. Drums, Benny Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen and Uriel Jones. And on percussion, you had Eddie “Bongo” Brown and Jack Ashford. Jack turned tambourine playing into an art form. And for the horn section, well, that number of potential players is just too long to list here.
We do know that Smokey’s songwriting partner, guitarist Marv Tarplin, played on the track. And the members of The Miracles who provide backing vocals are Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore and Claudette Robinson. With Smokey Robinson, of course, on the lead vocal, the song opens with a guitar part played by Marv Tarplin.
As the story goes, Marvin Tarplin was just kind of messing around with the chord changes to “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte.
He switched the chords around, changed the rhythm, and the central idea for “Tracks Of My Tears” was born.
That little drum fill is such a classic Motown intro. It’s simple, but it’s so perfect. You can also hear Eddie Brown on bongos and Jack Ashford on that tambourine. The bongos are fairly low in the mix on the final version, but that tambourine jumps out through the whole song. Drum fills like that would be borrowed and used on hundreds of songs to come, because they announce what’s coming. They ease you into the song, but they don’t step on any of the other instruments or vocals. Just perfect. I believe that’s Uriel Jones playing drums on this track. One of the unsung greats.
Let’s listen to just Smokey’s vocal track. It sounds so great acapella.
Remember, this was before AutoTune and before they were punching in every other phrase or word even, to get the perfect take.
That short verse brings us right to the first chorus in classic Motown fashion. They don’t waste any time here. They’re packing as many hooks as they can into three minutes. And for my money, this chorus can’t be beat.
Smokey said that Marv Tarplin would make tape recordings of his guitar parts and give them to Smokey, and he would listen to them over and over to come up with melodies and lyric ideas for this song. The first three lines of the chorus came to him pretty quickly. “Take a good look at my face, you’ll see my smile looks out of place. If you look closer, it’s easy to trace”. You’ve got that nice triple rhyme in there, face, place, and trace. But he was stuck on what comes next. Until one day, Smokey was looking into the mirror shaving, and the thought popped into his head. What if someone had cried so much that it left tracks down their face? And that was all he needed to finish the rest of the song.
And then we have this short little two measure transition that gets us from the chorus into the next verse.
And that gets us to the second verse. And I especially like Smokey’s performance and his phrasing on this verse.
Let’s go back and listen to that vocal track again.
Smokey is not a belter. He’s a smoother, gentler singer. He’s up on the mic so you can really hear his breath. And I think that just adds to the intimacy and the humanness of the part.
Now, about the next line. Pete Townsend of The Who was a big fan of this song and the story I’ve heard– I don’t know how true this is, but what I’ve read is that Townshend was so captured with the way Smokey sings the word “substitute” that that inspired Townsend to write his song “Substitute”, which would become a Who classic.
Let’s listen to the backing track. Under that verse, you can hear some bells or maybe vibes, probably played by Jack Ashford. And notice how the strings swell up under the second half of the verse, all, um, building for that chorus. That little descending part that happens all throughout the song. That is such a crucial part of the song, resolving the end of each line, bringing it back to the start to the root. Now, let’s listen to the vocal track for this chorus and notice how he leaves out the last word of each line. Those key rhyming words, face, place, and trace. Smokey doesn’t sing them this time. He leaves that to the backing vocals.
Now let’s listen to that again as it all comes together in the final mix.
I love how they just stop there. They pause everything for a heartbeat and then another great drum fill takes us into the bridge.
That’s the crescendo of the song right there. A repeating set of four triplets, 123-223-323-423; the whole band is hitting those notes so dramatically. Even the tambourine is in on the action. And the vocal is hitting those beats too.
Smokey Robinson and The Miracles – “Tracks Of My Tears”
My mother-in-law wasn’t what you’d call a diehard music fan, but she did love Smokey Robinson. She’s gone now. So this one’s for you, Kath.
You can be forgiven for thinking of Motown as your parents’ music. For many people, that’s probably true. The music of Motown was the sound of Young America. It was everywhere when your parents, or maybe your grandparents, were young. It’s part of the soundtrack of their youth. These songs may have been oldies by the time you were discovering your own music, but I believe– I have always believed– that there is no expiration date for a great song.
Thank you for once again joining me on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. The journey continues, and we’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. In the meantime, you can find all of our previous excursions on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just find us in your favorite podcast app.
And if you’re still looking for even more musical adventures, be sure to check out some of the other podcasts here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. If you’d like to support our show, the best thing you can do is to recommend it to a friend, share it with your other music loving friends and help to spread the word.
I’ll see you soon. Thanks for listening to this episode on “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
RESOURCES:
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/smokey-robinson-and-miracles
Motown Records https://www.motownmuseum.org/
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Documentary) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314725/
by Al Stewart - Copyright 1978 D.J.M./Frabjous Music Approximate Music
Singer/Songwriter Al Stewart came out of the London folk scene, but by the mid-70’s struck it big with MOR/AM Radio hit, “Year Of The Cat“. But there’s more to this Mr. Stewart than just that one hit. On this episode, I’m joined by fellow podcaster (and Al Stewart fan extraordinaire) Craig Smith to discuss the deep cut “Life In Dark Water“.
“Life In Dark Water” – Al Stewart Copyright 1978 D.J.M./Frabjous Music Approximate Music
TRANSCRIPT:
Brad Page: Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight, because I gotta get back for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network! I’m your host, Brad Page, and this episode, we’re exploring a song by Al Stewart– a deep cut from his 1978 album “Time Passages”; this is a song called “Life In Dark Water”.
Now, I gotta admit, I don’t know all that much about Al Stewart, really, but luckily, I happen to know somebody who does: Craig Smith, former host of the Pods and Sods Network, has joined us on this show before, and he’s the biggest Al Stewart fan I know. So I figured, let’s bring Craig back on the show, and we’ll all explore “Life In Dark Water”.
Brad Page: All right, well, Craig Smith, thank you for joining me on this episode to talk about Al Stewart. You are the biggest Al Stewart fan I know, so I couldn’t think of anyone better to come on and, uh, do this with me. So thank you for joining me.
Craig Smith: Absolutely. There are others of us around, too… you may be familiar with Brian Linnen…?
Brad Page: Yes, I know that young man– the upstanding citizen Brian Lennon. For the most part, my knowledge of Al Stewart is fairly minimal. You know, usually I do a ton of research for these things, but I thought I would be lazy and go to the expert I know to take care of that. So, let’s talk about Al Stewart. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna be talking about a song that, I guess I would put this maybe in, like, the middle of his career?
Craig Smith: Yes. Almost dead middle.
Brad Page: Yeah, from the “Time Passages” album. And let’s talk about how he gets to this record. If you could fill me in, because I know none of this, so tell me about Al Stewart up to this point.
Craig Smith: Okay. I should preface by saying that Eric and I were fortunate enough to interview Al Stewart in the very, very early days of Pods And Sods, which was a podcast that I was part of for ten years. But he comes from kind of the London scene in the mid-sixties, at a place called… now, I’ve heard it referenced as “Le Cousin”, but during our interview, I’m fairly certain he called it “Les Cousins”… which was a folk club. He played there with people like Paul Simon, Roy Harper, who was also somebody that I know you and I both admire, also comes from that same pocket of time. His first album came out in 1967. It was called “Bedsetter Images”. It was later re-released as “The First Album” with some different tracks. What is more interesting is that his second album, “Love Chronicles”, beat John Lennon by a year for throwing, uh, the very weighted f-word into a song, which is part of the title track, which is a sidelong folk number going through a bunch of relationships that he was in.
Craig Smith: His first four albums, very folky. And then, after that, starting with “Past, Present and Future” into “Modern Times”, snd then you start to move towards “Year of the Cat” & “Time Passages”. You’re getting into his commercial peak, as it were. He meets Alan Parsons– and Alan Parsons, I believe, did some work on modern times also— but he started to get more radio play around this time with a song from “Modern Times” called “Carol”.
Craig Smith: Of course, “Year of the Cat” is the song that, over here, propels him. It was a huge hit here, of course. “Time Passages” is the follow-up album. There’s another hit, the title track, flies very close to the blueprint “The Year Of The Cat” was built from.
Craig Smith: And then after that, he did a great album after “Time Passages” called “24 Carrots”, had a killer band called Shot In The Dark. Amazing live record after that. And then kind of after that, his releases get a little more, I don’t know that I want to say “electronic”… a little more “synthetic”, as eighties albums are want to do. But so much good stuff in that catalog. Even going in the later years, he never lost it.
So, to kind of just sum up what he is: I can’t remember if he said this during our interview or if I read it somewhere else, but he said ideally what he considers himself is a lyricist, period. And I think his singing is fantastic. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, it is a very mellow leaning towards yacht rocky delivery, which I happen to love. But I think once you get into the middle period of Al Stewart, it kind of goes from folk to more of like, I don’t even know if this is the right term, but like a “progressive folk”, there’s more arrangement-wise going on in these songs. And across the board, fantastic lyrics. Amazing lyrics. I’m an idiot when it comes to history and things like that… the funny thing is, if you’re looking at an Al Stewart lyrics without looking at who penned the song, it could either be Al Stewart or Iron Maiden. Given the balance of British history in both of their catalogs, it’s amazing, right? But yeah, what a rich catalog. Absolutely love it.
Brad Page: I’m not familiar with any of the early stuff… like most people, my first exposure to him was “Year of the Cat”, which was a bit of a mixed blessing, because this is back in the day when AM radio was still king.
Craig Smith: Oh yeah.
Brad Page: And that song was a big hit on AM radio. And at that point, AM radio was so formulaic and formatted that you knew exactly what song they were going to play, at what time, to the point where, like, on the school bus, you know, they would play the AM radio and without fail, we’d always be at one kid’s bus stop and they would play “Night Moves” by Bob Seger. And then, like two stops later, it would be “Year of the Cat” by Al Stewart.
It got to the point where I hated both of those songs, because you just heard them, like, every day. And it was, that’s what AM radio was like back then. When you have a song that just kind of– you’re sick of, sometimes it can throw you off a little bit. But “Time Passages”, that song I always liked quite a bit.
We’re gonna take a look at a song from that record. This is a song called “Life In Dark Water”, and it always jumped out to me from this record. I wouldn’t call it “heavy”, but it’s an intense song. It definitely has that Alan Parsons kind of Pink Floyd lite production to it. It’s very rich production, the whole album, but particularly in this song. Do you know the history of this song?
Craig Smith: Not too much of the history, aside from, there are some things that I can tell you about things that he said when introducing the song live on the “Time passages” concert. This is what he says: “This is a number which is about being stranded alive, thinking that you’re the last person in the world alive, alone on a seabed in a nuclear submarine. It’s a psychedelic sea song in which we never find out if the narrator is alone or not.” And then he goes on to say that “the Marie Celeste, which is referenced in the lyrics, was a ship found floating off the coast of the British Isles in the Atlantic Ocean with nobody on board, half eaten meals, and half smoked cigars. One of the great mysteries of the sea. In his trance, he thinks that he’s back in the Marie Celeste.” However, Al is wrong about this…
Brad Page: Yeah, the ship was actually called the Mary Celeste, not the Marie Celeste, but he’s not the only person to misname it. A lot of people called it the Marie Celeste, but it was the Mary Celeste. It was a ship built in Canada, registered in the US, that just showed up off the coast of wherever it was, with nobody on board and, you know, some damage, but not trashed or anything. And the lifeboat was missing. And they never found any of the crew. Just kind of one of those creepy stories. But interesting.
Craig Smith: The kind of story that podcasters make a mint off these days, right?
Brad Page: If we were a true crime type podcast, we’d dig into that.
Craig Smith: Never too late! But when he, when he introduces the song, he does say Mary, just to be clear. But in the lyrics, I believe it’s printed Marie. And he, in the song, he pronounces it Marie with a rolling r, which I cannot do. Yeah, that’s the Mary Celeste.
Brad Page: Yeah. It’s very interesting and intriguing lyrically, and I guess we can kind of talk about it as we go along. But that was one of the things that pulled me into the song.
Craig Smith: And musically as well.
Brad Page: Yes.
Craig Smith: When I got into Al Stewart, I don’t know that I would have expected a song like this. It’s just such an epic sound.
Brad Page: Yes.
Craig Smith: That was the word that I kept coming to.
Brad Page: Yeah, absolutely. It’s not really something that I would have expected from Al Stewart, if you only know the few hits. This is a lot… It’s darker, it’s a lot more atmospheric like. This is a lot spookier.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: All right, well, let’s dig into the track. It opens relatively atmospherically with kind of a riff or chord change that sounds pretty familiar. It’s the James Bond chord change. Right?
Craig Smith: The chords, from what I looked up– and this can be wrong or not– but on the intro, the chords are D Minor, B Flat with a D bass, Dminor6. So that’s where that note is moving around, giving it that James Bond feel. Yeah. Good ear. I didn’t pick that out.
Brad Page: I mean, I’m not saying that it’s like a knockoff or anything, but it’s just, it’s very effective. I like it.
Craig Smith: It works really well.
Brad Page: And then the first verse, he’s talking about “Living in the bottom of the sea, down metal snake corridors, steely gray engines hum for nobody but me”.
Brad Page: I mean, it puts you in a place, right? You could feel this guy, alone on this submarine, right from the beginning. I’m wondering, “How did this guy get here? Why is he all by himself?”
Craig Smith: You’re dropped into the story.
Brad Page: Yeah, right! Yeah, you’re literally dropped in the middle of the story, trying to figure out what is going on.
Craig Smith: And even the line “No message crackles through the radio leads”, just another worded so well, you know?
This is one of those songs for me where it’s the music and the lyrics are both a ten out of ten.
Brad Page: Yeah. I mean, they’re intertwined, right?
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: The mood of the music fits the mood of the lyrics so perfectly. And it takes a certain level of confidence to just plop people down in the middle of the story. Like, there’s no setup for this, right? There’s no, “We set sail from the port”, none of that. Like you’re just suddenly at the bottom of the ocean, alone on a submarine with this guy, not knowing, as he doesn’t know, apparently, who else is out there.
Craig Smith: Yeah. Fantastic. That’s what that “Year of the Cat” money can make you write songs like that.
Brad Page: Yeah.
Craig Smith: Drop the listener wherever you want.
Brad Page: Right. And you can afford to make a record that sounds this good too.
Craig Smith: One of the things that I really love about the arrangement: the piano tinkles.
Brad Page: Yes. Me, in my notes, I had basically the same words you’re using. I had “tinkling glass-like piano”. Uh, yeah, just very… It’s like icicles in a way, you know what I mean?
Craig Smith: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like something visual was coming to mind, I think that describes it very, very well.
Brad Page: Let’s talk about the second verse here. You’ve got some, like, sonar pings in the background. I really like that. They’re very subtle.
Craig Smith: Yeah. Not completely unlike the pings we hear in another masterpiece that I know you and I both love.
Brad Page: Yes. Where those are much more upfront. I mean, they’re kind of like the key to that song.
Craig Smith: These are very subtle.
Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. The bass is playing octaves.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: The line, “jet planes nose through the clouds above me, they look for radar traces of me to see”.
So, then I started thinking, “Well, did this guy, like, hijack a submarine?” Like, why are they looking for him? How does he know that they’re looking for him? Are they really looking for him? Or is he imagining that?
Craig Smith: Right. That was my thought. Like, how does he know they’re looking for him? This is kind of likely all in his head.
Brad Page: Yeah, but you never get an answer to any of this, which is, you know, the song always leaves you to decide.
Craig Smith: Exactly. And it could also be just like his hope, you know?
Brad Page: Right.
Craig Smith: That there is somebody out there looking for him.
Brad Page: Right.
Let’s talk about his voice, because you kind of mentioned that it’s, um, it might not be for everyone. I guess it’s a little bit of an acquired taste. I mean, it’s an extremely “white guy voice”, right?
Craig Smith: Oh, yeah.
Brad Page: There’s no R&B or Soul to his singing. And he does have, you know, he’s got a bit of a lisp, which is something that I can relate to. You don’t hear that a lot on pop records. You certainly would never hear that today. You’d never make it on “American Idol”.
Craig Smith: Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely not.
Brad Page: But how did you take his voice? I mean, were you immediately taken by it? Did it put you off at all or…
Craig Smith: It didn’t put me off. Um, “Year of the Cat” is part of my DNA. One of those songs that, before I got into Al Stewart, kind of like… and you know what, here’s another guy with a very similar voice” “Alone Again, Naturally”, by Gilbert O’Sullivan.
Craig Smith: But, um, I think that I didn’t have that roadblock at all. Like, I knew “Year of the Cat” from being a kid. And I’m like, oh, this is this dude’s voice. It doesn’t, there’s nothing about it that I find unpleasant. It’s– I don’t know that smooth is the, you know, because that’s going to make him sound like a crooner, but there’s absolutely no grit in Al Stewart’s voice in that respect. It is very smooth. So, like, Al Stewart’s voice isn’t going to, that’s not going to slow me down any. How about you?
Brad Page: Well, I think it, I’m not sure I’d say it was off-putting… I thought it was a little strange, I didn’t necessarily love it, but again, that was kind of all mixed up in the thing of just being sick of “Year of the Cat”.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: It doesn’t bother me. Um, but I can see why some people might be turned off by it.
Craig Smith: I get it.
Brad Page: But what I like about it today is that it’s not generic.
Craig Smith: Oh, yeah.
Brad Page: Nobody else sounds like that. And today, I think because of the influence of things like “American Idol”, singers are so generic and they’re so auto tuned and everything, that we’ve lost a lot of this individuality.
And then there’s this bridge, which is pretty incongruous for the rest of the song. It’s kind of this very Beatle-y, a British music hall sound.
Craig Smith: Oh, yeah.
Brad Page: And there’s this kind of slapback delay on the vocal. Just a minimal delay time. Almost a radio broadcast sound.
Craig Smith: Yeah, absolutely. Radio EQ.
Craig Smith: And we’re moving into, like, tack piano. A very chorus-effected piano.
Brad Page: It’s that kind of player piano, old barroom feel.
Craig Smith: Stride. Like Stride piano.
Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. The guitar is there, but it’s just kind of doing these kind of staccato chords. It’s really the piano that comes to the front. The bass is almost, kind of feels like what a tuba would be playing, you know, almost an Oompa kind of sound. It’s a very interesting bridge to put into this song.
Craig Smith: The one thing that’s interesting about this part to me is that, on the record, it really feels shoehorned in, in terms of how the arrangement switches on a dime.
On the live versions– or the live version, I should say, that the whole band plays on in the 1978 show– It’s a lot smoother transition, because they’re all playing it live. But, like, on the record, it does kind of feel like an edit. I’m not entirely sure if it is, but it feels like a splice onto a different, you know, something different. But then the way it kind of melts back into the song with that held note and the reverb is, is mesmerizing. So good.
Brad Page: Yeah. So we have this bridge out of nowhere that ends with this kind of big power chord that takes us into the guitar solo. And what a guitar solo.
Craig Smith: It is one of my favorites. It’s hard not for me to throw this in with, like, “Comfortably Numb”, but it’s one of those songs… I think this guitar solo, there is not one note that isn’t perfect. Tim Renwick playing it. A monster, monster guitar solo.
Brad Page: Yeah. Tim Renwick was, uh, one of those British studio guys that just played on lots of records. Of course, he worked with Alan Parsons a lot, which is probably how he ended up on this project. He played with Pink Floyd live, and he worked with Eric Clapton and Elton John; just, you know, one of those guys with a pretty impressive resume. I’m pretty sure he’s playing a Fender Strat. It sounds, uh, pretty Strat-y to me. But it’s just, it’s a great guitar tone; it starts kind of clean and then it gets a little more distorted, more bite to it, more echo in the middle. He’s doing these harmonics. It’s very cool.
It kind of gets heavier and more intense as it progresses, and just ends with that big power chord. It’s a really well-structured solo, really well performed. And the way they’ve recorded it just makes it even better. It’s a great moment. Yeah. He deserves a gold star for this one.
Craig Smith: Absolutely. And my favorite thing about the solo, this was actually the reason I kind of dug up the chords, I kind of wanted to see what that big moment in the solo, what it was doing. So most of the song’s in D Minor, or kind of moving around a D Minor chord. The part of the solo that I’m thinking of is when it goes, you’re moving into major chords there. You’re moving into an F, C, A, B Flat seven and a D Minor. And then, right as it goes to that run, that’s an A Flat Diminished chord, resolving to an A, which is just an amazing run of chords for that solo. Because that solo, as great as it is, once it starts snarling, when it really takes off on that F chord, it is a chills moment. And great as the whole solo is, that one moment when that string bends is just one of my favorite things in the Al Stewart catalog. Absolutely fantastic.
It’s one of those things that, you know, when you’re listening to this record, this comes around and you’re like, wow, I didn’t expect a minor key, at least not moody like this song, by Al Stewart. You’re getting into the song and the song’s great, and then this guitar solo completely pushes it over.
Brad Page: Yeah.
Craig Smith: And you didn’t, you listen to the song and you’re like, yeah, this song probably can’t get better. And it does– you know, that’s one of the best things about it. Like the way it does soar during that section and we have the first verse, the second verse comes in, brings in the drums by the time we’re in the solo, like everything is kind of just peaking. And I love it. Absolutely love it. It’s always a chills moment for me. Always.
Brad Page: It’s so well structured. It’s cinematic.
Craig Smith: Yes, absolutely.
Brad Page: Yeah. And like you said earlier, this is track number three on this album, which is an interesting placement for it. This, to me, feels like a side one ender, or a side two, or even maybe the last song on the album. But to put it that far up front on the record, it’s kind of a shock.
Craig Smith: Yeah. Yeah. And coming after… the one thing, the one issue that I kind of do have with the “Time Passages” album is I don’t love the sequencing of it. I don’t know how I would restructure all of it, but “Life In Dark Water” would absolutely be a side ender, on either side. I think that “End of the Day” is a great song to end the album with, but “Life In Dark Water”, I think, should absolutely be at least a side A closer. That’s me sidetracking on something not important to anybody except me…
Brad Page: Well, you know, I’m an album guy, and so a lot of times how I feel about songs is impacted on, in the context of an album, right? Because I tend to not listen to songs, I listen to albums. As much as this podcast is about songs, I typically, you know, I’m putting on an album and I’m listening it front to back, and how things feel in the context of that. So I’m with you.
So after the guitar solo, we get into the third verse. There’s guitar fills throughout the verse. More tasty Tim Renwick playing. This is the verse where we get the lines “No memory, tell me what’s wrong with me why am I alone here with no rest”.
Brad Page: And then there’s the Marie Celeste or Mary Celeste reference: “And now the name of the ship’s not the same. How long has it been Marie Celeste”.
Craig Smith: Now, this is something that I didn’t even realize this until I read the lyrics: Not kind of clocking what the line before it was. I always took it as “How long has it been” comma “Marie Celeste”. Like he was talking about another ship.
Brad Page: Or referencing it, right?
Craig Smith: Yes, yes. I never thought that he was speaking about the ship that he’s on, right?
Brad Page: He’s, I guess, kind of losing it.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: And he thinks he’s on the Marie Celeste.
Craig Smith: Yeah. Which completely opened up as soon as I read it. I was like, “Oh, this?” I never even realized that’s what he was trying to get across there.
Brad Page: “Tell me what’s wrong with me”– I don’t know, we don’t know! We don’t. And then, um, the verse wraps up with “Now there’s nobody from the crew left. 500 years supply of food just for me”.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: I mean, cinematic lyrics, right?
Craig Smith: Just the whole thing– and essentially the end of the story. That’s all we get.
Brad Page: Yeah, that’s all we get. And we don’t know what happens to him. We don’t know anything. Just, still to this day– 500 years of food, right” Still to this day, he could be an 80-year-old man still at the bottom of the sea in this submarine.
Craig Smith: I mean, Al Stewart could choose to write a sequel. He has chosen so far not to, and to leave the listeners hanging.
Brad Page: Yeah. Really intriguing lyrics. And then we’ve got, you know, there’s just a huge ending. More of that kind of tinkling piano. And then we ride out on, now very blatant, sonar pings.
Craig Smith: And also that last chord is fantastic.
Brad Page: Yeah.
Craig Smith: I would love to know what that is. Something tells me that if I was to look it up online, I would not get an accurate answer. But there’s something funky going on with that last chord. The site I’m looking at has it as a D Major 7 Sus 2. So I will need to try that later to see if that’s actually the case. But, uh, yeah, it’s just, it’s just one of those chords you haven’t heard in the song, so it’s just ending on this note of, uh, uncertainty is really the only way I could probably put it.
Brad Page: It’s not fully resolved. Right.
Craig Smith: Yeah.
Brad Page: Uh, just as the story is not resolved; just as those sonar pings just kind of fade, Like they could still be going today, right? It’s just cinematic.
You know, there’s a lot of ways to write a song: there’s the personal revelations, there’s opening your soul, there’s all, you know, those kind of things. There’s twists, and ways to turn cliches, and all of that. But one way to write a song is to kind of tell a story. And to me, this is one of my favorite story type of songs. You know, it’s not a personal thing, he’s telling a story, but you’re only getting this, like, one chapter in the middle of a book.
Craig Smith: Absolutely not what you expect from Al Stewart.
Brad Page: No, not at all. And I think that’s kind of one, that’s one of the things that drew me in from the beginning, is because it’s not what I expected. When I put this record on for the first time, I didn’t expect to hear a track like this. And again, as we said, it’s one of the first songs you hear and really grabs you. Just a great track.
So tell me how you got into Al Stewart.
Craig Smith: It’s a very strange story. So, always loved the “Year of the Cat”, but never sought it out, never owned it… I take that back, I did own it on a K-Tel album, I believe the album was called “Stars”, and it also had either “Beth” or “Rock And Roll All Night” on it.
Brad Page: Did it have, like, 30 songs on one vinyl record? Was it one of those?
Craig Smith: It’s a K-Tel album– Of course it did. So, it was one of those songs, like “Torn Between Two Lovers”, like all those are on this album and represent a very specific period of time of me being a toddler. So I grew up with this album in the house, so I knew “Year of the Cat” from that.
There was a friend of mine, Otto, who I used to, in my thirties, would often… here was a karaoke place. We were the two guys that might have been a little too old to be hanging out at the bar, but we would go there and we would do karaoke. And I remember one of the times coming out, it was like a block or two from my house, so we would walk there, but for some reason he had had his car and he drove there, and he’s like, “I got to hear “Year of the Cat” before I go home. And we’re sitting in the parking lot, and he’s just sitting in the car, and he’s playing “Year of the Cat” on his car stereo, and he is blissing out in his car, just like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. And me, having always kind of enjoyed the song, I was like, “Okay, this might be the time where I dig further in”.
When I sought out “Year of the Cat after that, probably the next day or whatever, I specifically remember sitting at my desk at work listening to it on a loop for 8 hours while I worked. I did not shut the song off. Shortly after, I bought the album, and then Otto turned me on to “Time Passages”. And then after that, I just kind of, I moved in different directions; one of the first things I grabbed was the “Uncorked” live album. So this had to be around 2009. I saw him shortly thereafter, uh, three times, with Dave Nachmanoff, who’s a guitarist. They were acoustic shows. Al pretty much played rhythm and Dave riffed on top of him like a madman. The “Uuncorked” album is also a nice way to get into other eras of Al Stewart. It’s not kind of hits-focused, it doesn’t have “Year of the Cat”, doesn’t have “Time Passages”. It’s all deeper cuts. “Life In Dark Water” is on there. Fantastic version.
But, yeah, after those three shows, I was like, “I’m in”. One of the most disappointing moments of my life was buying the 8-track to “Year of the Cat” to have him sign it, because I was like, “this is a conversation piece right here”. He’s going to be like, “Oh, I haven’t seen one of these”. No, he didn’t say a word about it. He threw a signature on there and handed it back. So I was like, well, okay… Yeah, a super nice guy and just like a storyteller, which is something that we kind of talked about it in terms of song, but he is also a storyteller. His song intros are maybe second to none. But if you have a chance to check him out, I absolutely would.
And then I just started listening to the whole catalog, and realized I loved every bit of it. There are hidden gems all over the catalog, but right in the middle, you have “Year of the Cat” and “Time Passages”. If you’re going to pick two, those are probably the two to pick. And then if you were going to go further, I’d go backwards a little bit. “Modern times”, “Past, Present and Future”. Maybe forward a little bit– Oh, absolutely “24 Parrots”. The live album “Indian Summer”. Fantastic, also great– except for that stupid thing they do where they fade every song out on the original vinyl. The CD is not like that. These are the kind of things I can contribute, Brad, from having owned literally every incarnation of Al Stewart CD’s that have been released.
Brad Page: That’s good to know; So on the vinyl, they fade out the live tracks, but on the CD, they do not, correct?
Craig Smith: Yeah, I bought a couple of vinyl copies, thinking maybe it was like the first run, but every vinyl copy I got fades them out. So, super weird. But remember, there’s a 38-disc box set called the “Admiralty Lights” at the end of this, if that’s a road you want to go down. And that is a road that I did go down. So, um, yeah, tons of Al Stewart out there, and I couldn’t be happier.
Brad Page: Thank you so much for the recommendations. Thanks for coming on and talking about this song and for the, edumacation on Al Stewart. I really appreciate it.
Craig Smith: Thank you for having me on. Always a pleasure.
Brad Page: It’s always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, Craig.
And thank you for joining Craig and I on this journey deep into dark water. If you’d like to revisit any of my previous episodes, you’ll find them all on our website at lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for them in your favorite podcast app. If you’d like to support the show, all I ask is that you share it with your friends. Tell people about the show, because we count on your word-of-mouth to grow our audience and to celebrate and preserve this music.
I’ll be back in approximately 15 days with another new episode, so let’s get together then. Thank you for coming aboard for this edition on Al Stewart and “Life In Dark Water”.
REFERENCES:
Al Stewart https://www.alstewart.com/
Time Passages album https://www.discogs.com/master/
Pods and Sods Network https://podsodcast.com/
Roy Harper https://www.royharper.co.uk/
Bedsetter Images album https://www.discogs.com/master/
Al-Stewart-Bedsitter-Images 8— Love Chronicles album https://www.discogs.com/master/
Al-Stewart-Love-Chronicles 9— Modern Times album https://www.discogs.com/master/
Al-Stewart-Modern-Times 10— Year of the Cat https://www.discogs.com/master/
Al-Stewart-Year-Of-The-Cat 11— Alan Parsons https://alanparsons.com/
Marie Celeste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste
Tim Renwick https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tim-renwick-mn0000594665
Admiralty Lights box set https://www.discogs.com/release/
"It's All I Can Do" (Ric Ocasek) Copyright 1979 Lido Music Inc
The Cars debut album was a commercial and critical success. The pressure was on for a follow-up, and the band delivered big time with their 2nd album, “Candy-O“. The album was packed with more Cars classics, including the subject of this episode, “It’s All I Can Do”, a song that shows the strengths of each band member– everyone contributing something special top this great track.
“It’s All I Can Do” (Ric Ocasek) Copyright 1979 Lido Music Inc
…and check out this previous episode on The Cars: lovethatsongpodcast.com/the-cars-just-what-i-needed/
TRANSCRIPT:
Time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, sending these love letters to the music we cherish, care of the Pantheon podcast Network. Each episode I pick a favorite song and we look at it in detail, trying to understand what makes it a great song. You don’t have to be a musician or have any advanced knowledge, because we don’t get into music theory or technical stuff here. If you’re willing to listen, then this podcast is for you.
On this episode, we’re exploring a track from a band that came onto the scene as the 70’s were coming to a close, and their sound was critical in launching the sound of the 80’s. This is The Cars with “It’s All I Can Do”.
We talked about The Cars on this show once before, back in episode number 43, “Just What I Needed”. So you can check out that episode for an overview of the band’s history. This time, we’ll pick up where that episode left off.
They released that first album in June 1978. A year later, their second album, “Candy-O”, hit the shelves. That first album was considered one of the strongest debut albums of all time, and it still is. Rolling Stone ranks it in their Top 20 Greatest Debut Albums. So when it came time to record their second album, the pressure was on, and they delivered… no sophomore slump here.
“Candy-O” ended up charting higher than the debut album. It made it to #3 and would eventually sell over 4 million copies. There were three singles released off of “Candy-O”. “It’s All I Can Do” was the second single. The song features Rick Ocasek on rhythm guitar, Elliot Easton on lead guitar, Greg Hawks on keyboards, David Robinson on drums, and Benjamin Orr on bass and lead vocals.
The song begins with a bass drum hit and a quick open and close of the hi-hat. One guitar on the left with a slightly distorted tone is playing staccato, muted power chords. The bass in the center is duplicating that guitar part. On the right, there’s another guitar playing smoothly strummed, ringing chords. Sounds like there’s maybe some reverb, perhaps some chorus effect on that guitar. The rest of the tracks are pretty dry, and Greg Hawks is playing a simple but effective melody on the keyboards.
Rick Ocasek is universally acknowledged as the architect of The Cars’ sound, and he wrote all the songs on the album; but every member of the band contributed something special, and to me, the magic ingredient of the best Cars songs is the vocals of Benjamin Orr. He had a great voice and so perfectly suited to The Cars sound.
For the second half of the verse, the guitar that was playing those clean, ringing chords on the right is going to suddenly shift to playing heavy, distorted chords. Listen for the change.
Then David Robinson is going to do a short drum fill on the toms to launch us into the first chorus, and those toms are pretty high in the mix.
The instrumentation behind the chorus is pretty minimal, not a lot of overdubs, just the basic band performing, but each player is doing something just a little different enough that it sounds nice and full, with Greg Hawke’s melodic keyboard part just riding on top. Let’s bring the vocals back in and listen to that again.
Both The Cars’ first album and “Candy-O” were produced by Roy Thomas Baker, one of the most famous and successful producers of the 1970s. Baker is probably most known for working with Queen, including producing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, so he knew how to layer vocals. Though the cars kept the production tricks to a minimum on this album, there are moments where the Roy Thomas Baker effect shines through those rich backing vocals at the end of the chorus. Here is a good example.
That chorus leads immediately into the second verse, and notice that clean, ringing guitar is back.
That’s one of my favorite lines in the song—“When I was crazy, I thought you were great.” We’ve probably all had a time in our lives where we were so crazy in love that we couldn’t see just how bad that person was for us.
And the distorted guitar returns.
Greg Hawkes is playing pretty much the same keyboard part that he played on the first chorus, but he’s using a different sound this time. Here’s the sound again from the first chorus. And here’s the keyboard sound on this second chorus. They add an extra six beats in there to lead us into the guitar solo.
And I’ve mentioned before on this show that I love Elliot Easton’s guitar playing. And this is another great example of a tasteful, melodic, memorable guitar solo by Elliot Easton. Check it out.
One thing we haven’t looked at yet is David Robinson’s drum part on the verses. What he’s doing is pretty subtle, but it’s not just a straightforward drum beat. He’s put some pretty clever twists into it. Let’s listen.
Also on this final verse, Greg Hawkes has added a new keyboard part. You can imagine a string section playing this part. It really adds a new layer of drama to this last verse. Listen to how it builds through to the end of the verse.
And that’s another great line; “As soon as you get it, you want something new”. How many of you have been on one end of that in a relationship?
Listen to the way the guitar and the keyboard are going to answer each other. It’s the guitar on the right, the keyboard on the left.
Like the way Benjamin sings this line here.
“It’s All I Can Do” by The Cars
The Cars released six albums between 1970 – 1987. Five of them were top 20 hits. Four of them reached the top ten. They split up in 1988.
Benjamin Orr died from cancer in 2000. The remaining members reformed for one more album in 2011. But without Benjamin Orr, it just wasn’t the same.
Rick Ocasek died in 2019. David Robinson has more or less retired from the music business and owns an art gallery in Rockport, Massachusetts. Elliot Easton is still active and has a number of musical projects that keep him busy, and Greg Hawkes does session and touring work, working frequently with Todd Rungren.
Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day to listen to this show. I always appreciate it. New episodes of the podcast come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back soon with another episode. You can keep in touch with the show on our Facebook page, or on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, where you’ll also find all of our previous episodes. And you can find the show on your favorite source of podcasts, whether it’s Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher– wherever you listen to podcasts, you’ll find this show. We are part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, the place for music related podcasts, so be sure to check out some of the other shows, too.
Thanks again for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast featuring The Cars and “It’s All I Can Do”.
A while back, we did an episode celebrating the Nuggets album, that quintessential collection of 1960’s psychedelic garage rock. But psychedelia was an international phenomenon, and on this episode, we’re travelling across the pond to feature the long-lost psychedelic bands from the UK. All of these selections are available on the excellent compilation albums in the Rubble series—if you like what you hear here, check those out.
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m Brad Page, your host here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where each episode we explore some of my favorite songs. About two years ago, I did a special edition of the podcast to celebrate the anniversary of the “Nuggets” album. One of the most important compilation albums ever released, “Nuggets” celebrated the forgotten bands from the 60’s psychedelic garage rock era. It inspired many other collections of long lost sounds from that era, when it seemed there was a teenage band on every street and all things seemed possible. There was so much music being made that “Nuggets” couldn’t possibly cover it all, even over the course of multiple volumes.
One of the things about “Nuggets” is that it was very US-centric. But of course, there was psychedelic music being made in garages, basements and living rooms around the world, especially in the UK. And one of the companion series to “Nuggets” were the “Rubble” albums, collecting tons of obscure 60’s bands from the UK and Europe. Starting in 1984, there would ultimately be 20 “Rubble” albums issued. On this episode, we’ll be sampling a whole bunch of songs from the first ten volumes of “Rubble” So strap yourself in, because we’re setting the wayback machine to 1960s England.
Whether you call it psychedelic rock, garage rock, or one of the more esoteric names like pop, Psych or Freakbeat, we’re talking about bands that formed in the wake of the Big Bang that was The Beatles, when millions of teenagers and young adults went out and bought guitars and drums and formed bands of their own. Some of these bands were more professional than others, but the one thing they all have in common is that none of them had any long-term success. Although, as we’ll see, occasionally a band member would go on to find success with another group. On this episode, we’re looking at songs recorded from 1965 to around 1968, primarily from bands from the U. K. although there may be a couple from Europe in here. All of these bands are included on the “Rubble” series of compilation albums.
Let’s kick things off with a band called Fire. Fire were a three-piece band from Hounslow, West London. They were originally called Friday’s Child and recorded a couple of demos which got them some attention from Apple, The Beatles’ record label. Someone suggested they change their name to Fire, and they recorded their first single for Decca Records in March 1968. When it came time to record their second single, the record label forced them to record a song by an outside songwriter and the band didn’t even play on the single. They were not happy about any of that. And that pretty much ended their relationship with Apple and Decca. They would record one album for Pye Records in 1970, but that was it for Fire. We’re going to go back to their first single from 1968– this song they wrote and played themselves. It’s called “My Father’s Name Is Dad”, and despite the wacky title, this song actually has a great Beatle-ish guitar riff and a pretty catchy chorus.
That was Fire with “My Father’s Name Is Dad”.
Here’s a song by The Clique or The Clique depending on where you’re from. I guess The Clique were from north London. I don’t know much about this band, but this was their second single from September 1965, produced by the legendary British producer Larry Page, who produced The Kinks and The Troggs classic “Wild Thing”. This is another song with an awkward title– This one’s called “We Didn’t Kiss, Didn’t Love, But Now We Do”. Great guitar sound, though.
This next song is one of the most interesting stories of the British psychedelic scene in the 1960s. Follow me on this one, because it’s a bit of a long story, but worth the payoff. Zoot Money and The Big Roll Band were formed in the early 60’s featuring vocalist and keyboard player Zoot Money. They primarily played soul and R&B tunes. But when the scene began to change and the psychedelic sound was all the rage, Zoot changed the name of the band to Dantalian’s Chariot in 1967 and essentially rebranded them as an acid-tinged psychedelic rock band. They played shows with Pink Floyd and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, performing in white robes with one of the best psychedelic light shows around. In September 1967, they released their one and only single, a psychedelic pop masterpiece called “Madman Running Through The Fields”. They went into the studio to record an album, but most of it was rejected by the record label. And when it was eventually retooled and released, it came out as a Zoot money and the Big Roll Band album– Dantalian’s Chariot was no more, having lasted only a year. For decades, it was thought that those original Dantalian’s Chariot recordings were lost. But they were eventually rediscovered and released on an album called “Chariot’s Rising” in 1996, almost 30 years after they were originally recorded. Now, if the name Zoot Money sounds at all vaguely familiar to you, it may be because you’ve heard of their guitar player. Andy Summers played guitar in Zoot Money’s band, and he followed him into Dantalian’s Chariot, co- writing many of their songs. Andy Summers would go on to play in a little band called The Police. But for now, let’s go back to 1967, when Andy Summers was wearing white robes and writing psychedelic songs like this one. This is the legendary track “Madman Running Through The Fields”
Dantalian’s Chariot “Madman Running Through The Fields”.
Next up is a band called Jason Crest. There’s nobody named Jason Crest in Jason Crest, just five guys from Kent who were originally called the Good Time Brigade and then the Good Time Losers. Before settling on Jason Crest as their name, they released five singles between 1967 and 1969. Supposedly they put on a killer live show, but it didn’t translate into record sales. Their final single was a song called “Black Mass”. Though it’s more goofy than it is scary, the record company held this one back out of concern, though it was still released before Black Sabbath recorded their first album. Here’s “Black Mass” by Jason Crest.
“Black Mass” by Jason Crest.
Everybody knows “Magic Bus” by The Who, but did you know that they were not the first ones to release it? Pete Townsend wrote the song, but gave it to a band called The Pudding, who released it in April 1967. The Who didn’t release it until July 1968. Here’s the version by The Pudding.
“Magic Bus” by The Pudding.
Here’s a song by a band called Turquoise. They were from Muswell Hill, a, suburb of London. Muswell Hill was also home to The Kinks. And you can definitely hear, uh, a Kinks influence on this song: “Tales Of Flossy Fillet”, one of only two singles released by Turquoise.
“Tales Of Flossy Fillet” by Turquoise.
If I say the name Dream Police to you, you’re going to think of the song or the album by Cheap Trick, right? But ten years before Cheap Trick released that song, there was a band from Scotland called the Dream Police. Formed in 1967, they released three singles before disbanding. Guitarist and singer Hamish Stewart would go on to form the Average White Band and spend a chunk of the 90’s in Paul McCartney’s band. Here’s a song by the Dream Police called “Living Is Easy”.
Dream Police with “Living Is Easy”.
One thing you don’t see too often with these psychedelic bands, neither here or on the “Nuggets” albums unfortunately, are groups fronted by women. Not too many female voices to be heard. But here’s one. Sharon Tandy was originally from South Africa, moving to the UK in 1964. She actually recorded some tracks at Stax Studios in Memphis and was the opening act on the legendary Stax Volt tour of Europe in 1967. She cut two singles with the band Floor de Lis. Here’s one of those tracks a nice riffy rocker called “Hold On”.
Sharon Tandy and Fleur de Lis with “Hold On”.
This next group was originally called the Silvertone Set. Playing mostly soul and R & B influenced songs, they changed their name to “The Elastic Band” and released one album and a couple of singles, none of which were hits. Their guitar player, Andy Scott, would later become a member of the quintessential glam band, Sweet. Here’s a song he co wrote for The Elastic Band called “Eight And A Half Hours Of Paradise”.
“Eight And A Half Hours Of Paradise” by The Elastic Band
The Dakotas were from Manchester, England. They first came to fame as the backing band for Billy J. Kramer in 1964. Mick Green joined them as their guitarist. He’d made a name for himself with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. The Dakotas released a few singles on their own. This is a particularly tasty b-side featuring a great guitar riff from Mick Green. It’s called “The Spider & The Fly”.
“The Spider & The Fly” by The Dakotas.
For the next couple of tracks, we’re going to cheat a little bit and go outside of the UK. We’re going to take a side trip to the Netherlands and listen to a song by a band called Group 1850. This track is one of the loopiest psychedelic tracks I’ve ever heard. Manic drumming, spoken word chanting, trippy guitar work and a flute. Folks, this one’s got it all. It’s called “Mother No Head”.
“Mother No Head” by Group 1850.
Here’s another Dutch band, Dragonfly. These guys never had a hit outside of their home country, but they did manage to release two singles. Dragonfly was wearing face makeup years before Kiss came up with it. You can find some clips on YouTube if you look for them. Here’s a song by Dragonfly.
“Celestial Empire” by Dragonfly
Back in the British Isles, The Flies were making a stir in London. Apparently, they dumped 800 bags of flour on their audience at one show. Here are the flies covering The Monkees. They slow “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” down and bring out the nasty edge in this classic song.
The Flies with their version of “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone”
Birmingham was the birthplace of a bunch of great British bands, enough that they coined their own term for the Birmingham sound: Brumbeat. The Knight Riders were purveyors of the Brumbeat sound before changing their name to The Idle Race. They’re mostly remembered for launching the career of first Roy Wood, then Jeff Lynne. Both would get together in The Move and eventually form the Electric Light Orchestra. Here’s an Idle Race song called “Knocking Nails Into My House” that shows that Jeff Lynne had something going on right from the start.
The Idle Race “Knocking Nails Into My House”
All the bands we’ve been talking about here slipped into obscurity pretty quickly, never to be heard again. But let’s hear from one band that did make an impact. Though they never had big hits in the US, they were very influential in the UK. The Pretty Things formed in 1963. Initially they played bluesy R & B influenced stuff like the Yardbirds or the Rolling Stones, but by the time they signed with EMI in 1967, they were a full-on on psychedelic band. They released a couple of singles, including “Talking About The Good Times”, one of the all-time time greatest psychedelic tracks, and then released the album “SF Sorrow”, which is acknowledged as being the very first rock opera, beating The Who’s “Tommy” by over a year. They released a dozen albums over their career and are still referenced today as an influence. So let’s go back to February 1968 and listen to “Talking About The Good Times”.
“Talking About The Good Times” by The Pretty Things
Let’s hear one more. The Onyx came from Cornwall, originally named Dick and The Hayseeds, but changed their name to The Onyx around 1966 and signed to Pye Records. They were known for doing great cover versions, but released a handful of self-penned penned singles, including “You Got To Be With Me” their first single in 1968, which is super catchy and features a very McCartney-esque bass part.
The Onyx “You Gotta Be With Me”
Well, I hope you enjoyed this trip through the sounds of psychedelia from 1960’s UK. As I said, all of these tracks can be found on the first ten volumes in the “Rubble” series. There is a box set that contains all 10 CDs. If you really dug this episode, it might be worth seeking out that collection. I recommend it.
New episodes of this podcast come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back in your ears soon. You can catch up on all the episodes you missed on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for us in your favorite podcast app. And while you’re there, leave a review of the show. I always hear that reviews are the number one thing that the algorithms use to determine how shows get ranked, and who gets exposed to the podcast. So if you can leave even a short review, that’d be great.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to this episode. I’m going to leave you with one more clip. You may remember the band Golden Earring for their hits “Radar Love” and “Twilight Zone”, but these guys have been together since 1961. They’re another Dutch band, and in 1966, they recorded a commercial for Coca Cola. It was released on a single that was apparently only available at one Dutch grocery store. The band didn’t particularly like doing it, but they needed the money to buy a new van. Such are the artistic compromises you make in the music business. So I’ll leave you with “Things Go Better With Coke” from 1966 by Golden Earring.
"I Wanna Be Sedated" (Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings & Douglas Colvin) Copyright 1978 Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc and Taco Tunes
Few bands left a legacy as deep and as lasting as The Ramones. You literally couldn’t count the number of bands who were influenced by these 4 New York ne’er-do-wells. They created a sound and a look that virtually created a whole genre of music. Let’s have a listen to one of their classic tracks, “I Wanna Be Sedated”.
“I Wanna Be Sedated” (Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings & Douglas Colvin) Copyright 1978 Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc and Taco Tunes
TRANSCRIPT:
This ain’t no Mud Club or CBGB’s– this is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, and each episode of this show, I pick a favorite song and we poke it and prod it, unearthing all the elements that go into making it a great song. Musical knowledge or experience is not required here, the only prerequisite is a little curiosity and a lot of love for music.
On this edition, we’re digging into a song by the progenitors of punk, the forefathers from Forest Hills– The Ramones and “I Want To Be Sedated”.
The Ramones came together around 1974, when guitarist John Cummings and bassist Doug Covid recruited Jeffrey Hyman to play drums in their new band.
Doug was the first one to change his name. Inspired by a fake name that Paul McCartney used to use, he changed his name to Dee Dee Ramone. He convinced the others to change their names, too. So, John became Johnny Ramone and Jeffrey became Joey Ramone. It didn’t take long for Dee Dee to realize that he wasn’t any good at playing bass and singing at the same time, so Joey took over lead vocals, and then he realized that he couldn’t sing and play the drums. So their would-be manager, Tommy Erdelyi, changed his name to Tommy Ramone and became their drummer.
They played their first gig in March 1974. Their songs were fast, short and loud. Dressed in black leather jackets, these guys were not Greenwich Village hippies. This was something new. They became regulars at CBGB’s, and in 1975, they signed a contract with Sire Records. They released their first self-titled album in 1976, a total of 14 original songs. The longest song clocking in at a breakneck 2 minutes and 35 seconds. That album is a classic.
They recorded two more albums, but by 1978, Tommy was tired of the relentless touring and left the band. But he would continue to work with them as their producer. They recruited a new drummer, Mark Bell, who had played with Richard Hell, Wayne County, and a band called Dust, and rechristened him Marky Ramone.
They started work on their fourth album, “Road to Ruin”, co-produced by Tommy and Ed Stasium. The Ramones never strayed far from their trademark sounds. But “Road to Ruin” shows just a tiny hint of advancement. There’s some acoustic guitars, short guitar solos, and some of the songs even crack the three minute mark. I think it’s one of their better records, and it contains one of their most enduring songs. “I Want To Be Sedated”.
Their constant touring schedule brought them to London during Christmas 1977. The band was exhausted, and when everything in the city shut down for Christmas, they were stuck at their hotel with nothing to do, nowhere to go. Apparently, after one show, Joey had said to their manager, “put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane”. All of this would work its way into the lyrics to this song.
The song is credited to Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny Ramone. It’s the track that opens side two of the album.
Like so many great Ramones songs, the track kicks off with a bang, with all instruments coming in together.
From what I can tell, there are probably four guitar parts here. There’s a guitar panned all the way to the left and another to the right. It’s possible that that’s just one guitar in stereo, but I think it’s two separate parts. Those guitars are just chugging away on the power chords, while there’s a third guitar in the middle playing in a higher register. Then there’s another guitar, also in the center channel, playing a twangy single note part, Dwayne Eddy-style. This is a good example of how multiple, pretty simple guitar parts can be layered together to create one big guitar sound.
Let’s take a listen to Joey’s vocal. There’s some classic 1950’s Sun Studio style echo on his voice.
And let’s check out the bass and the drums.
And that guitar break is even simpler than it sounds.
And here’s a key change.
And the hand claps return for this final section.
And that one note guitar part comes back here, too.
The Ramones – “I Want To Be Sedated”
The Ramones recorded over a dozen albums of original material. None of the records were that commercially successful. The band struggled their entire career. It’s so ironic that now that the band has long since broken up and all the original members are gone, now they’re probably more well-known than ever. They still probably sell more t-shirts than records. I bet half the people wearing Ramone’s t-shirts barely know anything about the band. But there’s no question how important they are in the history of rock and roll and how influential they were. Spanning decades, they inspired the British punks in the ‘70’s well as bands like Nirvana in the 90’s. It’s just a shame the guys didn’t live long enough to enjoy this success.
Joey Ramone died from lymphoma in 2001. Dee Dee died from a heroin overdose in 2002. It was prostate cancer that took Johnny Ramone in 2004, and Tommy died from cancer in 2014. But Marky Ramone, who plays drums on this song, is still with us today.
And that will do it for this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back with you in about two weeks with a new show. You can find all of our previous episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, Google, pretty much anywhere where podcasts are available. And of course, they’re all on our website too: Lovethatsongpodcast.com.
Keep in touch with us on Facebook, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, or on Podchaser, where you can leave reviews and comments and feedback.
This show is part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, where you’ll find plenty of other great music related shows to check out.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Remember to support the artists you love by buying their music. Take a few bucks out of your pocket and buy that album, that CD, or those m p three files. Now everybody sing along, as the Ramones play us out with “I Want To Be Sedated”.
REFERENCES:
The Ramones https://www.ramones.com/
CBGB http://www.cbgb.com/
Sire Records https://www.sirerecords.com/
Wayne County https://www.allmusic.com/artist/wayne-county-the-electric-chairs-mn0000247765
Dust (Band) https://www.discogs.com/artist/
Pantheon Podcasts https://pantheonpodcasts.com/
I’m in Love with That Song Podcast on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lovethatsongpodcast
I’m in Love with That Song Podcast on Podchaser https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/im-in-love-with-that-song-688085
Wishbone Ash - "Blowin' Free" (Martin Turner, Andy Powell, Ted Turner, Steve Upton) Copyright 1972 Colgems Music Corp./Blackclaw Music Inc - ASCAP
A teenage summertime love affair with a foreign exchange student was the inspiration for this song by Wishbone Ash. Though overlooked in the US, Wishbone Ash reached #3 on the UK charts with the album Argus, which features “Blowin’ Free”. Wishbone Ash’s twin lead guitar sound would inspire many band that followed.
Wishbone Ash – “Blowin’ Free” (Martin Turner, Andy Powell, Ted Turner, Steve Upton) Copyright 1972 Colgems Music Corp./Blackclaw Music Inc – ASCAP
— This show is just one of many great Rock Podcasts on the Pantheon Podcasts network. Gotta catch ’em all!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, it’s Brad Page. I’m back in the studio, powering up the mics and cranking up the headphones because it’s time for another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode of the show, we take a song and look at it from every angle, trying to get a handle on what makes a song work. No musical knowledge is required here– you don’t have to be technical, all you got to do is listen.
This time around we are listening to a track from a band that was big in Europe and the UK, but just never really caught on here in America. This is Wishbone Ash with “Blowing Free”.
Wishbone Ash came together in 1969 with Andy Powell and Ted Turner on guitars, Martin Turner on bass and Steve Upton on drums. Though Ted and Martin share a last name, they’re not actually related.
The thing that distinguished Wishbone Ash right out of the gate were those twin guitars of Andy and Ted. Though there had been other bands with two lead guitar players– the Allman Brothers come to mind– Wishbone Ash was one of the first to make harmony guitar parts such an essential element. That was the Wishbone Ash sound.
They released their first album in December 1970. Less than a year later, they released their second record, and in May 1972 they released their third album called “Argus”. It’s the album that most people consider to be their best.
“Argus” was well received, both critically and commercially. It was their biggest selling album, reaching number three on the UK charts. The “Argus” album flirts with progressive rock and hard rock, but it was the upbeat track “Blowing Free”, the closest thing to a pop song on the album, that got them on the radio and exposed to a wider audience, at least in the UK.
The song almost didn’t make it onto the album. The band thought it was too poppy compared to the rest of the record, but Martin Turner insisted that they keep it on the album.
The song is credited to Martin Turner, Ted Turner, Andy Powell and Steve Upton. Martin Turner wrote the lyrics and he plays the bass. Ted Turner and Andy Powell are on guitars and Steve Upton is on the drums. The album was produced by Derek Lawrence and engineered by Martin Birch, both known for their work with Deep Purple.
The song kicks off with a great guitar intro by Ted, and it didn’t have the same impact here in the states, but in the UK, learning that guitar intro was like a rite of passage for British guitar players, like “Stairway To Heaven” or “Sweet Child of Mine”, it’s just one of those intros that seems like every beginning guitar player had to learm. That introduction was actually inspired by an old song by the Steve Miller band called, “Children of the Future”.
They took that and turned it into something of their own.
Before the band fully kicks in, they’re going to change up the guitar riff.
Let’s listen to those guitars again.
You can hear how they’ve panned the guitars to the left and the right to add some differentiation and some dimension to the sound. Martin Turner’s bass part is also great here, too. Let’s listen to some of that.
When Martin Turner was a teenager growing up in a seaside town in southwest England, he had a summertime romance one year with a Swedish exchange student. Her hair was golden brown like a cornfield. When he was looking for lyrics for this song, he reminisced about that relationship and that story of teenage love and loss; that became the song.
Following that verse is a guitar solo played by Andy Powell, most likely played on his Gibson Flying V guitar. He was mostly known for playing Flying V’s. This is a great guitar solo.
Next up is the second verse. Martin’s Swedish girlfriend didn’t speak much English and he didn’t speak any Swedish, but I guess they found some way to communicate. Apparently when he asked her if he could kiss her, she said, “you can try”. That phrase appears a couple of times in this song.
Now the song shifts gears into a quieter, more melancholy section. Every good memory has a tinge of sadness for those lost moments you’ll never relive again.
I really like what Martin Turner’s bass and Steve Upton’s drums are doing behind this section. It’s simple but really effective. This leads us into another guitar solo. This one played beautifully by Ted Turner. Just incredibly tasteful. I think that’s just great. To me, he captures that wistful feeling of recalling old memories.
But that melancholy doesn’t last long. They kick right back into the verse riff, and Andy Powell takes over with another solo.
Let’s listen to some of that guitar.
And they return to the first verse.
More guitar work by Andy Powell. Now some of their trademark guitar harmonies start to appear in the background.
And here we have a slide guitar solo played by Ted Turner. Ted had started to listen to Ry Cooder, one of the great slide players of all time, and it inspired him to play a little slide guitar here. This is the first time Ted had ever tried playing slide.
Guitars start to build up from the background.
“Blowing Free” by Wishbone Ash
In the UK publication “Sounds” magazine, which was a big deal at the time, the readers voted “Argus” the best album of 1972, beating out albums like David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”, Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” and the Rolling Stones “Exile on Main Street”. That’s some serious competition– that just shows you how big Wishbone Ash was in the UK.
But here in the US, “Argus” didn’t get any higher than 169 on the charts. America just wasn’t that interested in Wishbone Ash, but guitar players– guitar players were paying attention. Bands like Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden would adapt that twin guitar harmony style, and, though largely forgotten by the average listener, Wishbone Ash left their mark on generations of guitar players.
A couple of years ago I was reading an issue of “Classic Rock” magazine and they had an article on this song, which inspired me to dig out that album and eventually inspired this episode. It had probably been 20 years since I last listened to this record, and you know, it’s always great to go back to an old album you haven’t heard in ages and hear it again with fresh ears. And it reminded me of my past loves, and loves lost.
Thanks for listening to this show. I really appreciate it. New episodes of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back soon with another new edition. You’ve been warned.
You can keep in touch with the show on our Facebook page or on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, where you’ll also find all of our previous episodes. And, of course, we’re available on Amazon, Apple, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, pretty much anywhere you can find podcasts, you’ll find this show.
And we are part of the Pantheon network of podcasts, home to many more music related shows, so check those out too.
Thanks again for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on Wishbone Ash and “Blowing Free”.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Wishbone Ash https://www.wishboneash.com/
Argus Album https://www.discogs.com/Wishbone-Ash-Argus/master/12065
"Midnight Train To Georgia" (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc
Introducing a new segment of the podcast – “Creation & Evolution“, where we explore songs that travelled a long & winding road before they reached their final version. In this episode, we trace the history of a song that started from a phone call with Farrah Fawcett and ended up as Gladys Knight’s biggest hit.
“Midnight Train To Georgia” (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc
TRANSCRIPT:
There’s the telltale theme music… it means it must be time for another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. My name is Brad Page, and I’m your musical tour guide, your geologist of another sort, as we explore the rock that made history.
This time, I’m introducing a new segment I’m calling “Creation and Evolution”, where we’ll take a look at both the birth and the journey a song takes before it ends up in its final form. Some songs have a rather short path from the writer’s pen to the final release, but some songs take the long way around, and that’s what we’re going to explore here on “Creation and Evolution”.
For example, what do airplanes, Houston Texas, and Farrah Fawcett have to do with “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips? Let’s find out.
Jim Weatherly was a songwriter from Mississippi who had written a few songs for Dean Martin and Peggy Lee. No hits, though he hadn’t really made his mark yet. One day in 1970, Weatherly called his friend, a struggling actor named Lee Majors, who would find fame as TV’s “Six Million Dollar Man”.
Majors wasn’t around, but his girlfriend, a struggling actress named Farah Fawcett, picked up the phone. She, of course, would eventually star in “Charlie’s Angels”.
Farah and Weatherly got to talking, and she told him she was just about to head out of LA to visit her family, leaving on a midnight plane to Houston. That phrase, “midnight plane to Houston”, stuck in his head. And as soon as he got off the phone, he sat down and in about 40 minutes, he wrote a whole song.
He based the song loosely on Fawcett and Majors. It was about a girl who went to LA to make it big, but when it doesn’t work out, she goes back home and her boyfriend follows her back. Weatherly recorded the song and included it on his 1972 solo album called Weatherly.
It’s a pretty modern country song, but the publisher had some faith in it and sent it around, hoping to find other artists to cover it. They even offered it to Gladys Knight.
But at this point, she passed on it.
They pitched it to another artist, singer Sissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mom. She liked the song, but not the title. She said, “my people are from Georgia, and they didn’t take planes to Houston or anywhere else”. They took trains. And this is just a guess, but I think she might have been concerned about some confusion since her name was Houston and the song was about the city of Houston. Either way, Weatherly agreed to change the lyrics to “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
And besides the title change, this version also changes the genders. Now it’s the man who has failed and is going back home, and it’s the woman who follows him.
Sissy Houston released her version in February 1973.
Meanwhile, in 1973, Gladys Knight and the Pips had left Motown Records and signed a deal with Buddha Records, which gave her more freedom to pick her own material. By this time, Gladys had already had a hit with another Jim Weatherly song, “Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye” in 1972.
And when Gladys heard Sissy Houston’s version of “Midnight Train to Georgia”, she knew she could make it work. She envisioned it as an Al green style soul number.
Producer Tony Camillo had worked with everyone from Diane Warwick to Grand Funk Railroad. It was his job to record the instrumental tracks for “Midnight Train” for Gladys. But she wasn’t happy with what he came up with. Too polished, too orchestrated. She wanted something more stripped down. So he cut another version– and she rejected that one, too.
So working with engineer Ed Stasium, who would later become a legendary producer in his own right, working with The Ramones, Talking Heads, Motorhead and Living Color, just to name a few, they put together a small band: Jeff Mirinoff on guitar, Bob Babbitt on bass, Andrew Smith on drums, and Tony Camillo himself on piano. They banged out a simple backing track in an hour and sent it to Gladys, and that was exactly what she was looking for. They overdubbed horns and some strings, but for the most part, they kept it straightforward.
Gladys recorded her vocal in almost one take. No warm up, no run through, no punch-ins. She was well rehearsed and she knew what she wanted. She stepped up to the mic and four minutes later it was almost done. Except for some ad libs at the end, which we’ll get to later.
I love how she’s singing pretty softly there– she’s holding back, but then she lets loose a bit for the next part.
And here’s the first chorus.
Now, notice how the backing vocals by William Guest, Edward Patton, and Bubba Knight, along with Gladys herself, aren’t just singing harmonies or repeating lines from the lead vocal, they’re actually adding commentary. They’re in dialogue with the lead vocal. That’s something that Gladys and The Pips brought to the song. None of the other versions do that.
Here’s the second verse, and let’s bring up the vocals again so we can hear more of that interaction between the lead and the backing vocals.
I love this part.
And check out the backing vocals here.
James Jamerson is the bass player most associated with the Motown sound, and he’s a legend. But Bob Babbitt also played on many Motown classics, too, and he’s a phenomenal player as well. Let’s listen to some of Bob Babbitt’s bass work here.
You gotta love those woo-woos.
Now, I mentioned before how Gladys recorded her vocal in one take, and that’s true, right up until this point in the song. They wanted to have Gladys do some ad-libbing during the final choruses, some of those inspired, energetic interjections that can really add some emotional weight to a song.
The problem was that Gladys didn’t feel like she was a natural at that kind of thing, at least not at this point in her career. She didn’t feel comfortable and kind of froze up at the mic.
Merald Knight, who everyone called “Bubba”, was not only one of the pips, he was also Gladys’ brother. He took a mic into the control room, and with the backing track playing, he fed Gladys some lines into her headphones, and she sang them back as the tape rolled.
Now picture Bubba Knight in that control room looking at Gladys through the glass, singing these lines to her like, “my world, his world, our world”. And she’s singing them back and putting her own spin on them.
Gladys Knight and the Pips – “Midnight Train To Georgia”.
Buddha Records issued “Midnight Train to Georgia” as a single in August 1973, and eventually it worked its way to number one. It won the Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, and it would become Gladys Knight and The Pips calling card for the rest of their career.
Of the original Pips, Edward Patton passed away in February 2005; William Guest died in December of 2015, but Merald Bubba Knight, Gladys’s brother, is still with us, and Gladys herself, as of this recording, is still alive and well. She released her last album in 2014.
Jim Weatherly passed away in February 2021. He was 77.
Thank you for joining me for this episode. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, you can binge on all of our past episodes, they’re all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.
You can find us on Facebook to share your thoughts and feelings, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, and you’ll find us. You can also send me email at lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.
This show is one of many great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network, so be sure to seek out all those other great shows.
To listen to the song again, complete and uninterrupted, stream it, download it, or buy it and support the music you love. Thanks again for joining me for this “Creation And Evolution” episode on Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
"The Ark" (Gerry Rafferty) Copyright 1977 The Hudson Bay Music Co. BMI
Everybody knows “Baker Street”– even if you don’t know the artist’s name or the song title, you probably know that sax riff. But there’s more to Gerry Rafferty than “Baker Street” (or “Stuck In The Middle”, for that matter). Here’s an incredibly moving song that’s every bit as good as his biggest hits.
“The Ark” (Gerry Rafferty) Copyright 1977 The Hudson Bay Music Co. BMI
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, true believers, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, your host here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where each episode, I pick a favorite song of mine and we explore it together on our never ending quest to understand what makes a song great. We don’t get into music theory here, so you don’t have to know a lot of jargon or technical stuff, we’re just going to listen together and see what we discover. On this edition of the podcast, we’re going to contemplate a song by Gerry Rafferty. Chances are, if you know the name Gerry Rafferty, it’s from this song [Baker Street]
But on this episode, we’re going to explore a song you may not have heard before. This is a song by Gerry Rafferty called “The Ark”.
Gerry Rafferty was born in Scotland in April 1947. He was the youngest of three children, and by some accounts, his birth was unplanned and his father resented his very existence. His mother would take Gerry out of the house on Saturday nights and stay outside, late into the night, just to keep Gerry’s drunken father from beating them.
When Gerry was 16, he formed his first band with a friend, Joe Egan. Firs,t they were known as The Mavericks, and then they became The Fifth Column, and they released a single in 1966 called “Benjamin Day”.
That single failed to make any waves. So, Rafferty quit and joined a group called The Humble Bums, which also featured Billy Connolly, who eventually become a legendary comedian. Here’s one of Gerry’s songs with the Humble Bums. This one’s called “Shoe Shine Boy”.
Eventually, Rafferty decided to try being a solo artist, and released his first solo album in 1971. It has a great album title– he called it “Can I Have My Money Back?”
The solo career was slow to get off the ground, though, and by now, Gerry was married with a young daughter. So he teamed back up with his old friend Joe Egan and they formed Steelers Wheel. Their first album came out in 1972 and features this song– and I’m sure you all know this one, too.
“Stuck In The Middle” was a top ten hit in the US and the UK. Steeler’s Wheel would release three albums between 1972 and 75. But the band split up, and they were entangled in a bunch of legal problems, which meant that Rafferty could not release a new album for three years.
But finally, when he recorded his second solo album, he was more than ready. The album “City to City” was released in January 1978, and thanks to the chart success of “Baker Street”, it became his biggest selling album. “Baker Street” is mostly famous for that saxophone part, but I’ve always loved that guitar solo, played by Hugh Burns. The “City to City” album also features “Right Down The Line”, which was another big hit from this record.
But the song we’re going to talk about today is “The Ark”. It’s the song that opens the album, side one, track one. It was written by Gerry Rafferty and performed by Tommy Ire on piano, Gary Taylor on bass, Henry Spinetti on drums, Graham Prescott on mandolin and fiddle, Glenn Lafleur on tambourine, Barbara Dixon on backing vocals, the great Jerry Donahue on electric guitar, and Gerry Rafferty on lead vocals and acoustic guitar.
The album was produced by Gerry and Hugh Murphy. The album, and the song, open with some traditional instrumentation. This was performed by an Australian group called The Bushwhackers has a real Celtic feel to it. Probably reminiscent of the sounds that Gerry heard growing up in Scotland.
That’s essentially the melody for the verse. After that opening section, the song switches to more traditional rock instrumentation for the actual verse.
This is a fairly stark but beautiful song, I think, anyway. Let’s take a look at the elements that make up this verse. The piano is the most prominent instrument, but there’s also an acoustic guitar that’s strumming along underneath it.
That chord change there on the piano, that gets me every time. It’s simple, but there’s just something righteous about that. And what the bass and drums are doing couldn’t be any simpler. It doesn’t need to be any more complex than this. All of the instruments are leaving plenty of space.
So let’s go back, hear all of those parts together, and add the vocals in.
I like how the drums skip a beat there. It breaks out of the simple repetition and kind of perks up your attention at the end of the verse. So let’s go back and listen to all of that and how it brings us into the second verse and set.
I’ve read in a couple places that Gerry had perfect pitch. I don’t know if that’s true, but there is a certain effortlessness in his vocals that they just seem to flow out of him so naturally.
And check out that great little electric guitar fill by Jerry Donahue.
Let’s back that up and start again and listen for more of those guitar fills by Jerry Donahue.
Let’s talk about the lyrics. Apparently, Rafferty had the idea for this song as far back as 1970- 71, but it was one of the last songs that he finished for this album in ‘78, almost eight years later. He really had to work at this one. I guess he was reading some books about philosophy or spirituality and about the ark– Noah’s Ark, and what it represented metaphorically or symbolically rather than literally. I think the song is about if we can wake up, if we can become aware, then we can start out on a journey to enlightenment. That’s where it begins. We’re all on this journey together. Here’s the chorus.
This is a great verse. Let’s focus in on his vocals here.
And that’s a nice little drum fill there, too. Everything about this track in this whole album is immaculately recorded. It’s just a great sounding record.
Let’s listen to the vocals. On the chorus, Gerry is harmonizing with Barbara Dixon, but he has also overdubbed his voice in layers. He was really masterful at that.
And that takes us into an instrumental section where the electric guitar plays off of the Celtic instruments from the beginning of the song. It’s an interesting choice. And Jerry Donahue gets off some great guitar licks here. This is a really well-structured solo.
Rafferty repeats the first verse here, but this time he’s double tracked his vocal.
More great guitar fills here.
And listen to the tambourine.
The Bushwhackers and their traditional instruments join in one last time here at the end.
Gerry Rafferty – “The Ark”
Gerry Rafferty was a very gifted man, but he hated being a celebrity. If you grew up in the did, you’ll remember when “Baker Street” was on the radio constantly, you couldn’t get away from that song. It made Gerry Rafferty a rich man… but it didn’t make him a happy man.
He was a great musician and songwriter and a singer with perfect pitch, but I think he was also very insecure. He didn’t seem to be that into playing live, and I don’t think he ever toured America. He didn’t like being a rock star and he lived a pretty private life. And he was an alcoholic.
By 1990, his wife of 20 years finally left. He struggled with depression and volatile behavior. In November 2010, he was admitted to the hospital and put on life support due to multiple organ failure. He was eventually taken off life support and sent home with his daughter, where he died of liver failure on January 4, 2011. He was 63.
A trace of loneliness and alienation runs through many of his songs, and you can hear it in his voice. You can hear it in this song. But this is also a song about hope; that we can wake up from this sleep and set out on our journey. I hope that Gerry Rafferty finally found the ship to take him on his way.
Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll be back soon with another new show. Until then, you can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us on your favorite podcast app– Spotify, Google, Apple, Stitcher, Amazon; you name it, his show is there.
We are part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, home to many other great music-related shows, so be sure to check them out. And if you’d like to support this show, well, the best thing you can do is to just tell a friend about it, because your recommendations are the most valuable thing.
So thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode on “The Ark” by Gerry Rafferty.
Jeff Beck was the guitar player’s guitar player. Ask the great guitar players who they thought was the best, and chances are they’ll name Jeff Beck. His playing was in a state of perpetual reinvention, always evolving & improving. No mere technician, he was a master of emotion. When Jeff passed away in 2023, we lost a musical giant.
On this, our 150th episode, we pay tribute to Jeff by looking back at his 50+ year career, highlighting some of his finest moments.
Use the discount code “lovethatsong” to save 15% on your favorite band merch at Old Glory!
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, friends. I’m Brad Page, host of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. And this just happens to be the 150th episode of the podcast. So, I wanted to do something different, something special with this episode. And one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do for a while is to pay tribute to Jeff Beck, the brilliant guitarist who died last year. Now, I could have rushed out an episode, but I wanted to do this right. Jeff Beck was a legend, an icon, an inspiration to millions of guitar players. And I believe he was the greatest rock guitarist of all time. So I wasn’t just going to throw something together.
Now, usually on this show, we dive into a specific song; we’ve also done shows where we take a look at a particular year, or focus on a certain event or an individual album, but we’ve never done a retrospective on one artist’s career– until now. So, for this, our 150th show, we’re going to explore the extraordinary career of Jeff Beck.
Why? Because you simply can’t capture what made Jeff Beck great in one song, or one album, or even in one decade of his career. Because there is no guitarist in rock history– I repeat, no guitarist– whose style and technique evolved so much over time, that by the end, he was playing like nobody else on the planet. That was no coincidence. It was the result of a restless spirit who could never stay in one musical place for too long. Someone who never stopped learning, who never stopped working on his playing, who just kept getting better. So let’s explore the sound, the passion, and the fury of Jeff Beck.
Jeffrey Arnold Beck was born June 24, 1944, near London. When he was six years old, he heard a song on the radio. “How High The Moon” by Les Paul and Mary Ford.
When he asked his mother what that sound was, she said, “it’s an electric guitar”, as if Les Paul was somehow cheating by using technology. But that made Jeff even more fascinated.
But it wasn’t until Jeff was about 12 years old before he actually played a guitar for the first time. A friend had an acoustic guitar that he wasn’t using, so Jeff borrowed it. That guitar was missing some strings, but Jeff fashioned some, using some wire from an old electric toy airplane. He saw the film “The Girl Can’t Help It”, which featured Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps playing “Be Bop A Lula”. And he was captivated by the playing of Cliff Gallup, the guitarist for the Blue Caps. Gallup would be a big influence on Jeff.
Jeff built his first electric guitar himself out of wood and parts that he scrounged together. He used to carry it around without a case, even strapping it to his back when he rode his bike, so that people would see it. He wanted to be known as a guitar player.
It was around this time that Jeff’s sister told him about this other kid in the neighborhood who also played guitar and decided to introduce them. That other kid happened to be Jimmy Page. Jimmy said “there was a knock on the door one day, and there was Jeff’s sister, with Jeff holding his homemade guitar”. They immediately became friends.
Jeff joined his first band, The Bandits, in 1960 when he was 16, and then joined the Deltones. He bought his first Fender Stratocaster around this time, it’s a big deal.
And in 1963, Ian Stewart, who was playing piano for the Rolling Stones, turned Jeff onto the blues. And Jeff was particularly struck by Buddy Guy, who became another major influence on Jeff.
He eventually joined the Tridents, and this is where he really started making a name for himself. By now, Jeff was playing a Fender Telecaster into a Vox AC30 Top Boost amp, with a Binson Echorec and a fuzz box he made himself. Here’s a recording of the Tridents playing “Nursery Rhyme”, recorded live in 1964.
The Yardbirds had formed in 1963, with Keith Relf on vocals and harmonica, Paul Samwell-Smith on bass, Jim McCarty on drums, and Chris Dreja and Top Topham on guitars. When Topham quit, they replaced him with a hot, young guitarist named Eric Clapton. They were originally a straightforward blues bass band, but when they recorded the more radio-friendly “For Your Love”, that was a bridge too far for Clapton, who immediately quit.
By then, Jimmy Page was an in-demand session player, working in London’s recording studios and playing on hit records. The Yardbirds asked Jimmy to join, but he wasn’t interested. But Jimmy recommended his friend Jeff Beck for the job, and Beck became a member of the Yardbirds.
He joined them just in time to work on their next single, “Heart Full Of Soul”. The story goes that they had hired a sitar player to play on the song, but when they couldn’t get it to sound right, Jeff said, “let me just try it with my guitar”. And using his Fender Esquire and a Sola Sound Tone Bender fuzz box, he put down on tape the first iconic Jeff Beck guitar part.
Many other classic Yardbirds hits followed, including one of the all-time great psychedelic tracks, “Shapes Of Things”, featuring two layered guitar solos incorporating feedback. Groundbreaking stuff.
Another classic was “Over Under Sideways Down”, featuring an eastern-influenced melody from Jeff. Jeff also played bass on this song.
And one of my favorite Yardbird tracks is this one, an instrumental simply called “Beck’s Boogie” that says showcase for everything Jeff had to offer at this time: his tone, his creative playing and his speed.
But Jeff was always temperamental– accent on the temper. If a gig wasn’t going well, or he just didn’t like his sound, he’d kick his amp over or walk off the stage.
In May of 1966, five of the greatest British musicians got together in a London recording studio to form a “supergroup” that lasted for one song. The Yardbirds manager knew Jeff was unhappy and encouraged him to record some solo tracks, thinking that that would ease the frustration. At the same time, drummer Keith Moon from The Who was feeling antsy and looking for a new opportunity. Jeff went over to Jimmy Page’s house; Jimmy was playing his Fender twelve string electric, and they worked up a song that would become “Beck’s Bolero”. A couple of days later, on May 16, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page showed up at the studio; Keith Moon arrived in secret, wearing a disguise; Nikki Hopkins joined them on keyboards, and Jimmy brought in one of his session friends, John Paul Jones, to play bass. Jimmy played his electric twelve string, and Jeff played a Gibson Les Paul.
At one point during the track, Keith Moon screams and he hit the mic with his drumstick, just smashing the mic. From that point forward, all you can really hear of the drums is the cymbals.
There was talk of them forming a band, but they didn’t have a singer. So Keith went back to The Who, Jeff went back to The Yardbirds, and the supergroup never happened.
In June 1966, Paul Samwell-Smith quit The Yardbirds. They had just finished recording the album that became known as “Roger The Engineer” (in my opinion, that’s The Yardbirds’ masterpiece) and they had gigs lined up. This time Jimmy Page came to the rescue, replacing Samwell-Smith on bass, and on June 21, made his debut with The Yardbirds as their new bass player.
It didn’t take long for Chris Dreja to realize Jimmy Page was just a much better guitar player than he was, so he switched to bass and Jimmy took over on guitar, creating one of the all-time great twin guitar lineups in history: Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, both playing together.
It didn’t last though. Volatile and moody as ever, Jeff finally quit The Yardbirds in the middle of a US tour in late 1966. The Yardbirds continued on as a quartet, with Jimmy handling all the guitar work.
Unfortunately, there are only two tracks that feature the Beck/Page lineup: “Stroll On”, which was featured in the 1967 film “Blow Up “,and “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”, a psychedelic masterpiece, with Jeff Beck conjuring up everything from police sirens to revving engines and bombs dropping. This track also features John Paul Jones on bass.
So by 1967, Jeff Beck found himself at a crossroads, a situation he would find himself in throughout his career. He’d left The Yardbirds, but what to do next? Mickey Most was one of Britain’s most successful producers, and he figured he could turn Jeff Beck into a pop star. Mickey recorded three pop singles with Jeff. “Hi Ho Silver Lining”, “Tallyman” and “Love Is Blue”.
But Jeff Beck was just not meant to be a pop star. He had no appetite for that side of the business. He started putting together his own band, starting with a lead singer named Rod Stewart and a guitarist, Ron Wood, who switched to bass. Mickey Waller joined them on drums, and the first Jeff Beck Group was born. With the support of Peter Grant, who would become Led Zeppelin’s manager, the Jeff Beck gGroup signed to Epic Records and released their first album, “Truth”, in July 1968.
Whereas the Yardbirds mix blues with pop and psychedelia, the Jeff Beck Group’s debut album is a slab of heavy blues rock, beating Led Zeppelin to the punch by about five months.
Their second album, “Beckola”, followed in June 1969. This album featured Tony Newman on drums with Nicky Hopkins on piano. And if anything, it’s even heavier than its predecessor.
Both albums sold well, but the writing was on the wall and the band split up. They were supposed to play at Woodstock, but Jeff backed out. He didn’t think they were good enough. Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, and Mick Waller would go on to record Stewart’s first solo album, and then Stewart and Wood joined the Faces… but that’s a story for another podcast.
Meanwhile, Jeff formed a new Jeff Beck Group and released two more albums in ‘71 and ‘72. Though both records have their moments, neither is particularly strong and didn’t do particularly well, either critically or commercially. The albums are most notable for introducing two musicians, Max Middleton on keyboards and a drummer named Cozy Powell.
So Jeff broke up the band and tried his hand at another supergroup, teaming with bassist Tim Bogart and drummer Carmine Appice, who had played together in Vanilla Fudge and Cactus.
Around this time, Stevie Wonder got Jeff to play on the song “Looking For Another Pure Love”, which would appear on Stevie’s next album, “Talking Book”.
One day, while messing around in the studio together, Stevie came up with the riff to “Superstition”. He finished writing the song with the intention of giving it to Jeff, but when Motown heard the song, they insisted that Stevie record it, put it on the album, and release it as a single. But Beck, Bogart, and Appice did record a version of it, and it’s probably the highlight of the one studio album they released together.
Once again, egos and personality conflicts took over and the band split. So Jeff found himself at another crossroads. He wasn’t really getting anywhere in terms of critical or commercial success, and he felt he was spinning his wheels creatively. Something had to change.
So he went into the studio with Max Middleton, who played on the last couple of Jeff Beck Group albums, along with Phil Chen on bass, and drummer Richard Bailey, and a producer named George Martin– the same producer who worked with The Beatles, along with many others, including John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, who Jeff was really into at that point.
Together, they produced an album that took Jeff into a totally new direction, a jazz/rock/funk fusion that was unique. Didn’t sound like anything else at that time. But it wasn’t just the style of the music that changed. Jeff actually changed the way he played, a different way of approaching the guitar, reinventing his style and technique.
The album was called “Blow By Blow”, and it turned out to be his most commercially successful album ever. An all-instrumental album, no vocals, that made it to number four on the Billboard chart and earned Jeff a whole new level of respect.
Let’s look at a couple of tracks from the “Blow By Blow” album. This is my personal favorite Jeff Beck album. I can’t say for sure, but from what we know, Jeff was probably using his 1954 Gibson Les Paul with an Ampeg VT40 amp, Crybaby Wah Wah pedal, Colorsound Overdrive and a ZB Custom volume pedal.
One of the standout cuts on the album is a song called “Thelonious”, written by Stevie Wonder, and though he’s not credited on the album, Stevie actually plays clavinet on this track.
Another fan favorite is “Freeway Jam”, which became a staple of Jeff’s live performances. Seems pretty clear to me he’s playing a Fender Stratocaster on this one.
One of the outstanding moments on the album is “Because We’ve Ended As Lovers”, also written by Stevie Wonder. Another one of Jeff’s favorite guitarists was Roy Buchanan. Jeff dedicated this song to Roy, and you can hear Roy’s influence on Jeff’s playing here. This is one of Jeff’s greatest performances, and the song remained part of his live gigs for years. On this track, I believe Jeff was playing a modified Fender Telecaster with Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups installed in it.
Jeff hit the road in 1975, touring with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, then he returned to the studio with George Martin to record his next album, “Wired”. This time the band featured Jan Hammer on synthesizer– he played a key role in the sound of this album, pushing the music further into the jazz fusion direction. Jeff toured with the Jan Hammer Group in 1976 and they recorded a live album together.
Here’s another track from the “Wired” album, this is Jeff’s version of the Charles Mingus classic “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”.
Jeff recorded one more album in the jazz fusion arena called “There And Back” in 1980, and then he went quiet for a few years. His next album came out in 1985, called “Flash”. It’s kind of a hodgepodge, probably his most commercially oriented album. It’s also my least favorite Jeff back album.
You got the feeling that Jeff was at another crossroads, not sure where to go next, so he just retreated from the public eye again. But he didn’t stop playing. In fact, his playing went through the most radical reinvention yet. He stopped using a pick, developing his own unique finger style, and he developed a way of incorporating the Stratocaster’s vibrato arm, the whammy bar, into his playing that was entirely unique. Sui generis, unlike anything else. This was not the Van Halen dive bombs or the Hendrix freakouts; this was an extremely controlled use of the vibrato, using sustain feedback and a surgical like use of the whammy bar to create microtones– notes between the notes, sounds you shouldn’t be able to make on a guitar. It took years of painstaking work for him to develop this way of playing. I’m simply in awe of it.
This technique was in full display on his next album, “Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop”. Released in 1989, this album features Tony Hymas on keyboards and legendary drummer Terry Bozzio. And it’s another left-turn for Jeff’s career, incorporating the sounds and technology of the ‘80’s into his music.
But the highlight of the record is a track called “Where Were You” that fully displays his new approach to playing. Using just the volume control on his Strat, along with the vibrato arm, he manipulates fretted notes and harmonics to produce a hauntingly beautiful vocal-like sound.
Jeff went on a co-headlining tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan and it was very successful. But when it was over, he stepped back again, this time due to his increasing issues with tinnitus, a severe ringing in the ears.
Jeff spent the next few years doing occasional session work and guest appearances, turning up on records by John Bon Jovi and Roger Waters. Then in 1992, he released two almost simultaneous projects, and they couldn’t be more different. One of them was the soundtrack to a TV series called “Frankie’s House”. The other was a tribute to his original guitar hero, Cliff Gallup– an album of Gene Vincent covers called “Crazy Legs”. Here, he sets aside all of his newly-developed technique and pays tribute to Gallup by emulating that classic sound and style.
Occasional session work followed, and one big tour in 1995 with Santana, but we didn’t get any new music until 1999, when he released “Who Else!”, The first of three albums inspired by electronica and bands like The Prodigy. It was also the first album where Jeff worked with another guitarist, Jennifer Batten. Jennifer was one of the most sought after hired gun guitarists in the late 80’s and 90’s. She toured with Michael Jackson for ten years. But Jeff was one of her heroes and she jumped at the chance to work with him.
Jennifer was a major contributor to the album and co-wrote the song “What Mama Said”.
That album was followed a year later by “You Had It Coming”, an album that again featured Jennifer Batten, with a guest appearance by Imogene Heap on a version of the old Muddy Waters classic, “Rollin’ And Tumblin’”
This album also features what I think is one of Jeff’s crowning achievements: a simply stunning track called “Nadia”. He had heard the track originally recorded by Nitin Sawhney and was fascinated by the female vocal melody.
This vocal style makes use of microtones that aren’t part of our western musical notation. These are notes that aren’t playable on a traditional guitar. But Jeff, using his meticulous vibrato bar technique, painstakingly learned that vocal melody, phrase by phrase. I can’t even begin to explain the complexity and difficulty of pulling off something like this, but Jeff did it, and would continue to do it as part of his live show.
Jeff released a third electronica-themed album, simply called “Jeff” in 2003, which included another of his vocal adaptations, this time drawing inspiration from the Bulgarian Female Vocal Choir on a track called “Bulgaria”.
That was a very fertile period for Jeff, releasing three albums within four years. He hadn’t been that prolific since the early 70’s. But after that last album, he stepped back again. He did release a live album in 2008 that’s one of my top favorite Jeff Beck records. It’s called “Live At Ronnie Scott’s” and Jeff is just brilliant on that album. It features an amazing version of the Beatles song “A Day In The Life”, which he won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame for the second time, as a solo artist. (He was already inducted as a member of The Yardbirds.) In 2010, he returned with his 10th studio album called “Emotion And Commotion”. Half of those tracks featured guest vocalists like Joss Stone and Imelda May. The other half were instrumentals. Here’s one called “Hammerhead”.
Absolutely ferocious. Jeff was 65, 66 years old when this record came out, and he was still as fierce a player as ever. But of course, he could also be incredibly delicate. The same album includes a beautiful version of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, recorded in the studio with a live 64-piece orchestra.
Six years later, in 2016, he released what would be his final solo album, a record called “Loud Hailer”. And this is one of my favorite Jeff Beck studio albums. Jeff had heard these two women, vocalist Rosie Bones and guitarist Carmen Vandenberg– they have a band called Bones UK– and Jeff liked what he heard and asked them to collaborate on this album.
Now, let me point out one thing that’s worth noting here: going back to Jeff’s work with Jennifer Batten, through his tours featuring the great bass players Tal Wilkenfeld and Rhonda Smith, to this album where he shared the spotlight with Rosie and Carmen, Jeff was a real supporter of women musicians. Not just for novelty or “eye candy”, these were all women who could really play and deserved to be there. But he gave these women a chance in the spotlight and brought them in front of new audiences around the world. He deserves some credit for that.
Almost all of the tracks on “Loud Haler” are co-written by Jeff, Carmen and Rosie, and shows, once again, Jeff fitting his style into a modern context.
Jeff would release one more album, kind of a one-off duo with Johnny Depp in July 2022. And then on January 10, 2023, Jeff Beck died from a bacterial meningitis infection. He was 78 years old.
It was a shock in the guitar playing community. Virtually every guitarist you can think of paid tribute to Jeff.
There have been many great guitar players; I believe Jeff was the greatest. There are many reasons why– I won’t go through them all, but here’s just one reason: Jeff never stopped getting better. His playing grew and changed and improved.
Let’s look at most of the iconic players. Of course, Jimi Hendrix died young, so we don’t know what his playing would be like now. Same for Randy Rhodes and Stevie Ray Vaughan. But let’s look at Eric Clapton, who I really admire as a player, but some people think his playing peaked with cream in the 60’s, others think it peaked in the 70’s… But either way, if you listen to Eric Clapton today, has he evolved much since then?
Let’s look at Jimmy Page– Again, another player who I absolutely love, but has he done anything that surpassed his work in the 70s?
What about Eddie Van Halen? His guitar playing shook the world in 1978, but from then to his death in 2020, can you honestly say his playing radically improved or changed? I don’t hear it.
No disrespect meant to Eddie, or to Brian May or Tony Iommi… Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Steve Morse, Joe Bonamasa, they may all be better technical players, in terms of speed or knowing more theory, but none of them– no one– revamped, revised, rebuilt their style and technique from the ground up as much, or as often, as Jeff Beck. None of them changed and evolved and improved over the course of their career as Jeff Beck. And he was still improving. He was never satisfied and he was always pushing himself to get better.
There is no contemporary or current guitarist who continually developed and improved over their career like Jeff Beck. Nobody who went from this:
To this:
To this.
To the point where he was playing radically different and better in his 70’s than he did in his 20’s. It’s amazing, nobody could touch that technique. He was one of a kind.
There are new generations of brilliant guitarists, from Bumblefoot to Buckethead. players like Omar Garcia-Lopez, Tosin Abbasi, Plini, Rabia Massad… they are all brilliant players at the top of their game, but we’ll see– when they’re in their 70’s, will their playing have evolved and deepened as much as Jeff Beck’s?
Thank you for joining me for this special episode looking at the career of Jeff Beck. Trust me when I say we’ve just scratched the surface of his work. Go pick up some of his albums. A great place to start is the “Live At Ronnie Scott’s” album. There’s also a great documentary called “Still On The Run”, which I highly recommend.
I’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Thanks for being a part of the last 150 shows, and if that’s not enough, you’ll find even more shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network, enough to satisfy any music junkie.
Please keep in touch and until the next time, I’ll leave you with one final track. This is from the aforementioned “Live At Ronie Scott’s” album. It’s the live version of Jeff playing “Where Were You”. This is how he closed that show, and it’s a fitting way to close out this episode. Jennifer Batten described this as “basically impossible, it’s an impossible tune”. Well, impossible for anyone– except Jeff Beck.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Jeff Beck https://www.jeffbeck.com/
Click here to play the podcast