Humble Pie – “Stone Cold Fever”

Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley, Jerry Shirley - Copyright 1971 Unart Music Corp (BMI), UMG Recordings, Inc.

Humble Pie is often overshadowed by bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Queen, but they were a considered a “supergroup” when they formed in 1969– fronted by Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and Peter Frampton from The Herd. Their first 2 albums are a mixed bag, but by the time they signed with A&M Records in 1970 they had refined their style down to a bluesy, hard-rockin’ sound. Rock On (1971) was their most successful album to date and features “Stone Cold Fever“, which is itself a stone-cold classic.

“Stone Cold Fever” (Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley, Jerry Shirley) Copyright 1971 Unart Music Corp (BMI), UMG Recordings, Inc.

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TRANSCRIPT:

I’ve got a Stone Cold Fever, but I don’t need no doctor!  Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song”  Podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page. In each episode of the show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, looking at it from every angle, trying to get a handle on what makes the song work, and why do I like it so much? Musical knowledge or experience is not a prerequisite here. We don’t get technical. This show is for anyone who loves music.

This episode, we’re taking another look at one of the best hard rocking bands from the 1970’s, a band that’s kind of overlooked now. They’ve been overshadowed by groups like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Queen… those all became iconic bands, but for a while there, Humble Pie was right up there with them. This time out, we’re digging into a song that’s one of their classics, from a pivotal album in their career. This is “Stone Cold Fever” by Humble Pie.

Humble Pie were somewhat of a supergroup when they formed in 1969. Steve Marriott had been the front man for the Small Faces, and Peter Frampton was the breakout star from a Band called The Herd. They got together and formed a new band with Greg Ridley on bass– He’d been playing with Spooky Tooth– and a young drummer named Jerry Shirley. He was only about 17 when he joined Humble Pie.

Now we’ve discussed Humble Pie, and the Small Faces. on this show before, so I’m not going to rehash everything again, you can go back and listen to those episodes. But essentially, both Marriott and Frampton wanted to be taken more seriously as musicians. They were tired of being perceived as pop stars, so Humble Pie was their shot at credibility.

They signed with Immediate Records and released their first album, “As Safe As Yesterday Is”, in August 1969. Interestingly, one of the earliest uses of the term “heavy metal” appears in a review for this album. I don’t think anybody today would describe this album as anything close to “heavy metal”. In reality, this record is kind of a mixed bag with some rockers, but also some bluesy numbers, acousticy folk, and even a touch of post-psychedelic rock.

Their second album, “Town And Country”, was released just a few months later, in November 1969. This one was more acoustic than the first album, but Immediate Records was in financial trouble and they quickly went bankrupt. So this album, “Town And Country”, was never even released in the US at the time.

After the collapse of Immediate Records, they signed a new deal with A&M Records, and the band refocused. Most of the acoustic stuff was gone. They developed a harder, heavier sound and they concentrated on the American market, determined to break through here. Their first album for A&M, which most people in America thought was their first album period, was just called “Humble Pie” and came out in July 1970. It features a great version of the Muddy Waters classic “I’m Ready”.

They continued to refine their sound, and in March 1971, they released their strongest, most successful album yet, “Rock On”. There’s a half-dozen rock-solid songs on this album, including “Stone Cold Fever”. Most of the tracks on “Rock On” had been part of their live set for a while, so they’d worked out all of the kinks and they were well rehearsed by the time they hit the studio to record this album.

The album was produced by the band along with Glynn Johns. All four band members share songwriting credit on “Stone Cold Fever”. The song was performed by Peter Frampton on guitar and backing vocals, Greg Ridley on bass and backing vocals, Jerry Shirley on drums and Steve Marriott on guitar, harmonica, keyboards and lead vocals. The track begins with the guitar riff– and what a great guitar riff this is. It’s played by Peter Frampton in the left channel.

After two times around, the rest of the band starts coming in, including Steve Marriott’s guitar in the right channel.

They add these little trills to the guitar riff. Marriott does it first in the right channel, and then Frampton adds a harmony to it.

Let’s back it up a bit and we’ll play into the first verse. It’s an interesting vocal sound on this track. I used to think that they just used some heavy slapback echo on the vocal to get that sound, but now, listening to it more closely, I think that Steve Marriott actually double-tracked his vocal; he sang it twice. So, the natural inconsistencies in any human performance keep the tracks from sounding 100% identical, which produces the sound we hear on the final mix.

So, let’s try to isolate each one of these vocal performances. Here’s the first one.

And here’s the second vocal.

Now, they sound pretty much the same when you listen to them in isolation, but if we can combine them together, you can hear how those slight differences between the two tracks provide the sound we hear in the final mix.

All right, let’s go back, put that all together, and hear that verse again in the final mix.

That leads us into a new riff. The first time through, Marriott and Frampton play it in unison. The second time around, Frampton plays a harmony which climbs with each cycle.

Next is a short harmonica solo played by Steve Marriott over the main riff. Also notice Jerry Shirley’s banging on a cowbell in the background.

Let’s go back and listen to the two guitars during that verse. They’re essentially playing the main riff, but each of them are playing it pretty loosely, improvising around it as they go along. They’re not trying to play it exactly or perfectly, and they’re not trying to match each other. This gives the recording a spontaneous live feel. Again, its Frampton in the left channel, Marriott in the right.

And that brings us to the second riff with the harmonica.

After that nice drum fill by Jerry Shirley– and remember, he was only about 19 when they made this record– that fill takes us into a jazzy section featuring a fantastic guitar solo by Peter Frampton. Frampton’s name doesn’t often come up when listing the great guitarists, but I absolutely think he’s one of the best. So, let’s hear just his guitar first.

Frampton is an incredibly tasteful player, and his jazz-influenced licks are really distinctive. There’s no one else who really plays quite like him. Now let’s hear how that solo works in the final mix.

Then we get a short harmonica break before the guitarists return with another riff.

The next riff is accentuated with some backing vocals. Let’s hear those backing vocals first.

And now let’s hear that in context.

“Stone Cold Fever” by Humble Pie.

“Rock On” was their best-selling album up until this point, but Peter Frampton was feeling frustrated. He was fine with the harder rocking material, but he wanted more than that, too. And he wanted to be more than just the guitar player; he wanted more opportunity to write and sing. And let’s face it, Steve Marriott was not the easiest guy to deal with. So later in 1971, just after they had recorded a live album, “Rockin’ The Fillmore”, Frampton left to pursue a solo career.

When “Rockin’ The Fillmore” was released, it became a big hit. It’s still the album that Humble Pie is most remembered for, and as Frampton watched his former band’s album climb the charts while he struggled to get his solo career off the ground, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a big mistake. But things worked out for him a few years later, though. That’s a topic for another podcast.

As we’ve mentioned on previous podcasts, Steve Marriott died tragically in a fire, in April 1991, age 44. One of the greatest vocalists of his generation.

Greg Ridley died in November 2003 from complications from pneumonia. He was 56.

Peter Frampton suffers from a somewhat rare progressive muscular disorder called Inclusion Body Mitosis. He initially announced his retirement from music, but he’s still been able to play, so he’s kept going. Above all, he is a true guitar player at heart, and he’ll play for as long as he can.

Jerry Shirley is still with us, and thankfully, as far as I know, he’s still healthy and still playing drums today.

Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast network for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. If you’d like to support the show, and I hope you do, zip on over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or two. They carry shirts and merchandise from all of our favorite bands, and if you’re like me, you can never have too many t-shirts. So support your favorite artists, wear their shirts with pride. And when you use our discount code, “lovethatsong”, you’ll get a nice discount and you’ll be helping out this show. That website is oldglory.com and the discount code is lovethatsong. Thanks in advance.

I’ll be back in about two weeks with a new episode, so I’ll see you then. In the meantime, catch up on all of our previous episodes– there’s over 180 of them now– on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us in your favorite Podcast app.

Now go dig out some Humble Pie records and rock on with “Stone Cold Fever”.

RESOURCES:

Humble Pie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Pie

Peter Frampton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Frampton

Steve Marriott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Marriott

Rock On album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_On_(Humble_Pie_album)

Glynn Johns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyn_Johns

Rockin’ the Fillmore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_Rockin%27_the_Fillmore

Inclusion body myositis
https://www.mda.org/disease/inclusion-body-myositis

Immediate Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_Records

A&M Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26M_Records

Small Faces
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Faces

The Herd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Herd_(UK_band)

Spooky Tooth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooky_Tooth

The Plimsouls – “A Million Miles Away”

"A Million Miles Away" (P. Case, J. Alkes, C. Fradkin) Copyright 1982 Baby Oh Yeah Music BMI/Nineties Music BMI

The Plimsouls, led by guitarist/singer/songwriter Peter Case, released a couple of terrific albums in the early ‘80’s, fusing power pop, punk and R&B into their own unique blend. “A Million Miles Away” was featured in the film Valley Girl, and should’ve catapulted The Plimsouls onto greater fame, but their career stalled and the band split up by the mid-’80’s. To some, this song marks The Plimsouls as One-Hit-Wonders, but their albums are chock-a-block with great songs. Still, there’s no denying the brilliance of “A Million Miles Away” and on this episode, we take a close look at this timeless classic.

“A Million Miles Away” (P. Case, J. Alkes, C. Fradkin) Copyright 1982 Baby Oh Yeah Music BMI/Nineties Music BMI

TRANSCRIPT:

String theory is the theoretical concept that all of reality is made up of these infinitesimally small vibrating strings. Smaller than atoms, smaller than electrons and protons, smaller than quarks, vibrating at different frequencies. And what is a guitar, or a violin, or a piano, but a bunch of vibrating strings? The whole universe is just one big song. Welcome to the Pantheon Podcast Network and the “I’m In love With That Song” podcast.

My name is Brad Page, and each edition of this podcast, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dig deep into it. Maybe not down to the level of quarks or electrons, but we go deep enough to examine all the elements that make it a great song. So you don’t have to be a scientist or a musical expert to enjoy this show. Just a little curiosity is all that’s required.

On this episode, we’re exploring a classic power pop band from the early ‘80’s that still sounds as fresh and vital today. This is The Plimsouls and “A Million Miles Away”.

Peter Case was a member of The Nerves, a band that straddled the line between punk and power pop in the mid-seventies. Along with Jack Lee and Paul Collins, they released one four-song EP in 1976 and then broke up. But those four songs were great, including the classic “Hanging On The Telephone”.

Of course, that track was later covered by Blondie, and they had a big hit with it.

Peter Case then put together The Plimsouls, named after a type of shoe, I believe. Initially they were a three piece with Peter Case on guitars and vocals, Dave Pahoa on bass and Lou Ramirez on drums. A little later, Eddie Munoz came on board on lead guitar. They released a five-song EP called “Zero Hour” in 1980.

They became pretty popular around LA and signed a deal with Planet Records, and released their first full album, self-titled, in 1981.

That first self-titled album is a great album, but it didn’t really sell, and they ended up parting ways with Planet Records. Then they independently released “A Million Miles Away” as a single. And that song ended up in the movie “Valley Girls”. In fact, the band is actually featured in that film. That got them some attention. They ended up getting signed by Geffen Records and released their second album, “Everywhere At Once”, in 1983. That album features a re-recorded version of “A Million Miles Away”.

The song was performed by Peter Case on lead vocals and twelve string guitar, Eddie Munoz on lead guitar, Dave Pahoa on bass, and Lou Ramirez on drums and percussion. It was produced by Jeff Eyrich.

The song kicks off with a flam on the snare drum and a great guitar riff. Sounds to me like that riff is played on the twelve string. Let’s hear just the guitars.

The bass and drums have a great groove going on too. Let’s go back and listen to those two together. We’ll pick it back up from that part of the verse.

They repeat that riff twice there. And then we get a new section, essentially a pre chorus. The chords here are a little dreamier, a little spacier, with lyrics to match: “I started drifting to a different place I realized I was falling off the face of the world and there was nothing left to bring me back:

There’s really great guitar accompaniment on this pre-chorus. This is definitely played on the twelve-string. Let’s go back and hear that.

And that pulls us right into the first chorus. Let’s listen to that all the way through. Let’s hear the whole band underneath the vocals. The guitars really work well together here. And there’s more cool riffing on the twelve-string.

All right, let’s back it up a bit and then play through the end of the chorus. Let’s pull up the vocals for this second verse.

Sounds like he’s doubling the vocals. Let’s pick it up at the next pre-chorus.

And let’s bring the vocals up again for this chorus.

Listen for the echoes on this next line.

Next up, Eddie Muniz lets loose with a pretty tasty guitar solo. There’s some more tasty playing going on behind the vocals there, so let’s go back and just listen to this section without the vocals.

Let’s bring it back in for the last chorus. Here comes the echoes on the vocals again.

The Plimsouls “A Million Miles Away”

The Plimsouls would break up after this album. Peter Case has continued to write and record. He’s released plenty of solo albums, and he’s still out there. A pioneer and founding father of indie rock, The Plimsouls have reunited a few times and they got one more album in 1998 called “Cool Trash”. I recommend all of their albums. They’re all worth seeking out.

Thanks for checking out this edition of the “I’m In love With That Song” podcast. New episodes of this show are released into the wild on the first and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back soon. If you can’t bear to wait for the next episode, you can catch up on all of our previous shows. There’s over 150 of them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or look for us on your favorite podcast app. And of course, there’s plenty of other shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network, so check some of those out too.

Please leave a review of the show wherever it is that you listen that helps, and share the show with your friends, family and neighbors. Your word-of-mouth support is the best advertising we can get, so thanks for that. And thanks for listening to this episode on “A Million Miles Away” by The Plimsouls.

RESOURCES:

The Plimsouls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plimsouls

Peter Case
http://petercase.com/

The Nerves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nerves

Blondie
https://www.blondie.net/

Valley Girl (film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086525/

Geffen Records
https://www.geffen.com/

Grand Funk Railroad – “Footstompin’ Music”/”Rock ‘N Roll Soul”

"Footstompin' Music" (Mark Farner) Copyright 1971 Storybook Music - BMI; "Rock 'N Roll Soul" (Mark Farner) Copyright 1972 Cram Renraff Co. - BMI

Imagine a time when a band could sell out Shea Stadium faster than The Beatles, without the support of radio airplay or the blessing of music critics– and no social media. Grand Funk Railroad did just that, and in this episode, we’re back with another look at the high-octane world of live rock concerts. Discover how Grand Funk Railroad became a music phenomenon, becoming one of the biggest bands of the ’70’s. We’re delving into a live album where the opening tracks weren’t just songs but declarations of a rock and roll manifesto. From the adrenaline rush of “Footstompin’ Music” to the soulful grooves of “Rock ‘N Roll Soul,” this episode isn’t just a history lesson– it’s a backstage pass to one of the greatest shows on earth.

“Footstompin’ Music” (Mark Farner) Copyright 1971 Storybook Music – BMI
“Rock ‘N Roll Soul” (Mark Farner) Copyright 1972 Cram Renraff Co. – BMI

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

We’re coming to your town, we’ll help you party it down– we’re the Pantheon Podcast Network, and this is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page– I’ve got the whole show, that’s a natural fact. In this episode here, we explore one of my favorite songs, getting a deeper understanding of what makes them tick, what makes them a great song.

On the last few episodes, we’ve been looking specifically at live recordings, how a song can come to life when played by a real band in front of a real audience. We’ve been looking at some of the different aspects of live music, how a song can be reinterpreted live, how a band can really take flight live and just play.

And one of the other aspects is the full concert experience itself, from the opening number to the final encore, how a show is built and paced. Some of my favorite moments on live albums are the first tracks; the show openers — from the way deep purple tear into “Highway Star” on their classic “Made In Japan” album; Cheap Trick, kicking off “At Budokan” with “Hello There”, the perfect opening track; when Paul McCartney and Wings open the “Wings Over America” live album with the medley of “Venus and Mars” into “Rock Show” into “Jet”– It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard.

Another one of my favorite one-two punch opening numbers is when Grand Funk Railroad opens their live album, “Caught In The Act” with two back-to-back tracks that set the tone for a rock and roll celebration. So this time, on this episode, we’re going to be listening to not one, but two songs. So let’s get this party started with “Footstompin’ Music” and “Rock ,N Roll Soul” by Grand Funk Railroad.

You may think I’m exaggerating when I say that for a time, Grand Funk Railroad was the biggest rock band in the world. But in the early seventies, they were bigger than Black Sabbath or Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin. They had at least six platinum-selling albums in a row and sold out Shea Stadium in 72 hours– that was faster than the Beatles did. And they did this with virtually no help from the critics or the radio. The critics hated them, and they got almost no airplay on the radio until their 7th album. But let’s start at the beginning.

Terry Knight was a local DJ in Flint, Michigan and a Grade A hustler. He formed a band called Terry Knight and The Pack, which included a drummer named Don Brewer and a bass player named Mark Farner. The Pack never had much success, though they released two albums and some singles and gigged around a lot. Eventually, Terry Knight left the band to start a solo career in New York and ended up as a producer. Meanwhile, Brewer and Farner carried on with The Pack, but eventually they hit rock bottom. Stranded on Cape Cod in Massachusetts in February, in the middle of a blizzard, with no gig and no money, they returned home to Flint and contacted Terry Knight because they knew he had contacts.

Knight agreed to manage them, but at a cost: he wanted complete control as manager and producer. But with no other options, they agreed. By now, Mark Farner had switched to playing guitar, so the first thing they did was recruit a bass player, Mel Schacher, who had been playing with Question Mark and The Mysterians.

The next thing they did was change their name. Terry Knight rechristened them Grand Funk Railroad. It’s kind of a pun, based on the Grand Trunk and Western Railroad, which ran through the Midwest.

Their first big break came when they were able to get on the bill at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1969. They weren’t even paid for the gig, but they made the most of it by playing their asses off and earning a standing ovation. They went over so well that they were invited back the next day, and the day after that. By the end of the festival, they were the hot new thing and immediately signed to Capitol Records.

Their first album, “On Time”, came out in August 1969. In December, only four months later, they released their second album. It’s just called “Grand Funk”, but fans like to refer to it as “the Red Album”.

They steamrolled across the country, selling out shows, some concerts ending in riots. They released their third album, “Closer To Home” in March. That’s three albums in less than a year. But they were actually getting better. This was their strongest album yet.

Terry Knight celebrated their success by erecting a 60-foot-high billboard in Times Square to promote the “Closer To Home” album. Terry Knight kept up the hype, and he kept the boys busy by constantly being on the road… and away from their books. Knight was taking a big cut of their royalties and performance fees. Mark, Don and Mel were essentially just employees of Grand Funk Railroad enterprises. Terry had all the control.

By now, the band were selling out shows not just in the US, but in the UK and Japan. It was in July 1971 when they sold out Shea Stadium faster than The Beatles. More records followed, including “E Pluribus Funk”, in my opinion, the best of their early albums.

But trouble was brewing. The band was chafing under Knight’s control, and they started wondering, “where’s all the money?” A bitter dispute followed. They sued Knight, and he sued them back. This legal battle went on for two years, and in the end, Knight ended up with a big load of cash and the rights to all their recordings and their songwriting royalties. All the band was left with was the rights to the name Grand Funk Railroad.  Ironically, if they had just waited three more months instead of suing, that contract would have expired.

In 1972, they brought in a fourth member, keyboard player Craig Frost, and they released album number six, “Phoenix”. This is kind of a dividing line for fans, from “Phoenix” on. They embraced their R&B roots more, and their sound got just a little more melodic, more hooks. To some fans, this is where they get off the Grand Funk train. But for me, this is where the records get better.

It’s certainly where the records get more popular. In 1973, they bring in Todd Rundgren to produce their next album, “We’re An American Band”, and the title cut is their first number one hit.

They bring Todd Rundgren back to produce their next album, “Shining On”, in 1974, which includes their hit version of “The Locomotion” and the title cut, “Shining On”.

By December of 74, they release another album, “All The Girls In The World Beware”, which featured two big hits: “Some Kind Of Wonderful” and “Bad Time”.

They toured in ‘74 and ‘75 and then released their second live album. They had released a previous live album in 1970, simply called “Live Album”. This second live album is called “Caught In The Act”, and it features all the hits, plus a ton of great album cuts. The band, Mark Farner on vocals, guitar and occasionally keyboards; Craig Frost on keyboards; Mel Schacher on bass; and Don Brewer on vocals and drums, are augmented on this tour by The Funkettes, two backing vocalists named Lorraine Featherson and Jana Giglio.

The original album opens with a long introduction. The sound of the crowd and fireworks going off. That lasts almost three minutes. When the album was issued on CD, they cut most of that out, fading up the crowd just before the band kicks off their opening number “Footstompin’ Music”.

Don and Mel laying down the groove. So there’s Don on drums, Mel on bass and two keyboard parts, because both Mark and Craig are playing organ here. Mark’s keyboard is in the right channel, Craig is in the left. Sounds like Craig maybe switched to playing a clavinet while Mark stays on the organ. Let’s hear just those keyboard parts for a bit.

That’s Don Brewer with the ad libs there. It’s Mark handling the lead vocal.

Let’s focus on just the bass and the drums here, especially that great walking bass part that Mel Schacher is playing.

There’s some great dueling organ swirls there. Let’s just listen to that.

Now Mark is going to step away from the organ and do some good old-fashioned rock and roll preaching.

Now, Mark has had his guitar on this whole time, but he hasn’t played a note on it until now. On this tour, Mark was playing a Valeno 72 Standard. It’s a pretty unusual guitar; it’s made of aluminum. Mark has a fairly unique guitar tone all through this album, but how much of that is strictly due to this guitar? I don’t know.

Let’s bring up this guitar solo in the mix.

And Mark is going to switch back to the organ here.

Let’s bring those vocals to the front.

Let’s go back and just hear that drum fill.

Alright, here comes the big finale. And listen to Mel Shocker’s bass in particular; he is riffing like a madman.

Here’s another great drum fill by Don Brewer.

So “Footstompin’ Music” ends right there. But the party is just getting started. They pause for just a few seconds and then they count right into the next number. “Rock ‘N Roll Soul”.  I really dig this whole introduction.

So right there, Mark says “we done this song a long time ago”. This concert was recorded in 1975; the song originally appeared on the “Phoenix” album in 1972. So I don’t know, three years doesn’t seem like a long time ago to me. But I suppose when you’re still in your twenties, releasing two to three albums a year and living at the pace these guys were, three years maybe seems like an awful long time.

I love that transition into the actual song.

Let’s bring up the vocals.

Notice how they change up the groove on this section, especially on the drums. Don Brewer is going to take over the vocals for this section. And I really like what Craig Frost is doing on the keyboards in the left channel. It’s very simple, but I love how it plays off the rhythm of the guitar and the drums.

Mark Farner takes another guitar solo. But first I want to hear what the bass and drums are doing under this section.

Okay, let’s go back and hear that with the guitar solo. More guitar. Now he’s got a flanger on his guitar.

The base goes wild again.

“Footstompin’ Music” and Rock ‘N Roll Soul” by Grand Funky Railroad.

This would be the peak for Grand Funk Railroad. They would release a couple more albums, but sales were declining, and there was tension building within the band… and by 1976, they split.

Mark Farner released a couple of solo albums and Frost, Brewer and Schacher soldiered on, releasing one album under the name “Flint”. They got back together a few times, starting in 1981, and released a couple more albums. In my opinion, those records don’t really hold up.

For quite a while, both Brewer and Frost joined Bob Seeger’s Silver Bullet Band. In fact, Frost still plays with Bob Seeger today. Mel Schacher left the music biz for a while, but he and Brewer have toured versions of Grand Funk Railroad since the late nineties. Mark Farner does his own thing with Mark Farner’s American Band.

Grand Funk can sometimes be a punchline today. They are, after all, Homer Simpson’s favorite band.

But they’re no joke to me. Yes, it’s meat and potatoes rock, but there is some great stuff in their catalog, and I legitimately love this album. As a teenager, I played it over and over, and spent many an hour playing air guitar to this record.

Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast Network for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. We’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episodes, so join me again then. All of our previous shows, and there’s over 160 of them, can be found on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find them in your favorite podcast app. Just look for us. You’ll find us in there.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook or send me an email– Lovethatsongpodcastmail.com is the address.  And if you’d like to support the show, all I ask is that you tell a friend about it because your recommendation is worth more than any advertising.

I thank you again for listening to this episode. Now go find yourself a copy of “Caught In The Act” by Grand Funk Railroad; put it on your turntable and crank up those first two tracks, “Footstompin’ Music” and “Rock ‘N Roll Soul”.

RESOURCES:

Grand Funk Railroad
https://www.grandfunkrailroad.com/

Shea Stadium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shea_Stadium

Terry Knight and the Pack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Knight_and_the_Pack

Mark Farner
http://www.markfarner.com/

Don Brewer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Brewer

Mel Schacher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Schacher

Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band
https://www.bobseger.com/

Mark Farner’s American Band
http://www.markfarner.com/

Caught in the Act (album by Grand Funk Railroad)
https://www.discogs.com/Grand-Funk-Railroad-Caught-In-The-Act/master/99202

Elvin Bishop – “Calling All Cows”

 Click here to play the podcast
by Earley Dranne - Copyright Excellorec Music Co. BMI 

Strap in for a wild ride with Elvin Bishop and his fiery ensemble as they tear through the raucous track “Calling All Cows“, from the rollicking 1977 live album Raisin’ Hell. We dig into this electrifying live performance that showcases a band at the top of their game. A prime example of the musicianship that made the ’70s a golden era for live albums; Elvin Bishop’s Raisin Hell stands out as a testament to that time.

For those who have never heard Elvin’s work, this episode is a perfect introduction. And for long-time fans, it’s a chance to fall in love with his music all over again. 

“Calling All Cows” (Earley Dranne) Copyright Excellorec Music Co. BMI 

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You are listening to us on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I am your host, Brad Page. And each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dive into it together, listening for all of those little moments, the special touches that make it a great song. No musical skill or knowledge is required here– all you need is a love for music, and you’re going to fit right in here.

Now, usually on this show we focus on studio recordings, looking at how songs were put together in the recording studio. But on this batch of episodes, we’re focusing on live recordings, tracks from some of my favorite, and kind of lesser-known, live albums. On this episode, we’re going to listen to a track by Elvin Bishop from his 1977 live album “Raisin’ Hell”, featuring his smokin’ hot band, showing just how exciting it can be when a really tight group of musicians cut loose and play. This song is six minutes of pure fun. It’s called “Calling All Cows”.

Elvin Bishop’s image has always been as a country boy, a real hayseed. But as is often the case, the truth, it’s a little bit more nuanced than that. He was born in Glendale, California, in 1942, but he grew up on a farm in Iowa with no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was ten, but he was a smart kid. He graduated from high school as a National Merit scholar, earning him a full scholarship to the University of Chicago. Ostensibly, he went there to major in physics, but not coincidentally, it just happened to bring him closer to the blues and R&B music that he loved.

While at the University of Chicago, he met a harmonica player named Paul Butterfield, and they would visit the Chicago clubs, learn from the blues greats, people like Otis Rush, Hound Dog Taylor, Buddy Guy. They formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1963. Though Bishop was the original guitarist in the band, he was largely overshadowed by Mike Bloomfield, who joined in 1965. That’s not surprising, as Bloomfield was one of the greatest guitar players of his generation. Almost anyone would have taken second fiddle to him, but Elvin was no second-rate guitarist.

The Butterfield Blues Band released their first album in 1965 and about a year, later cut their second album called “East West”. “East West” is one of the most influential albums of the 1960’s. Along with a selection of typical blues covers, the album features two lengthy instrumental tracks which let the band cut loose, experiment with jazz and elements of Indian ragas. One of the first albums to incorporate these exotic elements in a rock and blues context.

Mike Bloomfield quit the Butterfield band after “East West”. Elvin Bishop would hang on for two more albums, and then he left, too, to start his solo career in 1968. The first Elvin Bishop group album was released in 1969, and over the course of four or five more albums, Elvin built a band around him of tasteful, flexible players who could really jam.

Donnie Baldwin on drums. Michael “Fly” Brooks on bass, Johnny Vernazza on second guitar. These guys were tight, but these albums were all largely under the radar; none of them were close to breaking any sales records.

A singer named Mickey Thomas had been singing background vocals on the last few Elvin Bishop group albums. But on their 6th album, “Strutting My Stuff”, in 1975, Mickey was promoted to full-time band member and got to sing lead vocals on a few tracks, including a little number called “Fooled Around And Fell In Love”.

That was it. That was the secret sauce. The band needed a group of super-tight players who could really hit the groove. Elvin’s guitar out front and Mickey Thomas’ vocals on top. They had a bona fide hit.

They followed the “Strutting My Stuff” album with their next record, “Hometown Boy Makes Good”, and then in 1977 released a live album called “Raisin’ Hell – Elvin Bishop Live”.

1977 was peak Live Album era; everyone was releasing live albums. Many of them became big hits. This is a pretty typical live album of the period. It’s a double album offering a nice retrospective of Elvin’s solo career with a few surprises thrown in. Robert Christgau, the “Dean of American rock critics”, actually gave this album an A minus. So that’s at least one thumbs up. But I really like this album a lot. It’s a selection of tracks recorded across five shows, from March 1976 through February 1977. This particular track, “Calling All Cows”, was recorded at the February 1977 show at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. “Calling All Cows” originally appeared on the “Juke Joint Jump” album from 1975. Here it’s expanded a bit to really let the band play. And this was a big band. There’s a lot of players on that stage. Of course, you have Elvin Bishop on lead guitar and lead vocal on this track. Mickey Thomas on backing vocals. Johnny Vernazza on guitar. Melvin Seals on keyboards. Don Baldwin on drums. Michael “Fly” Brooks on bass. Billy Slais on saxophone and keyboards, Renee Slais and Debbie Cathey on backing vocals. And Chuck Brooke, Bob Claire, Dave Grover and Bill Lamb on horns. The album was produced by Alan Blazek.

The song kicks off with a drum fill, and it sounds like there’s some percussion, conga drums maybe in there, too. Then the bass and synthesizer play a funky little riff together.

Elvin’s telling someone to wait a minute, I don’t know if he’s talking to the band or the audience, but this song isn’t stopping for anyone.

I love that bass part right there. They’re hitting such a great groove already. Listen to how the horns punch up certain little bits throughout the song. It’s classic.

And now we got a twin guitar part. Elvin and Johnny V playing in harmony. They’re both playing slide guitar here.

Let’s hear just the bass and the drums. Listen to that groove they’re laying down. Here comes the first verse sung by Elvin with, I think, Johnny V singing along with him.

“We’re gonna have a little milk we’re gonna have a little cream, we’re gonna have a little butter, a little margarine”. I mean, come on, is that great or what? I love this song.

There’s a great little lick in there in the left channel. I think it’s played by Johnny V on guitar. But then again, it could be Melvin Seals on keyboards. Let’s back it up a bit and play into that second verse.

Listen to those horn accents and the way they’re locked right in with the drums. This band is tight.

Let’s bring up those twin guitars. Notice how the guitar solo takes a break for the horns to do their thing, before we go back to the guitars. This isn’t just a free form jam. There’s an arrangement here. It feels like they’re just jamming, but there’s a structure behind it all.

Elvin is going to play a little solo. Listen to how the horns are building things up behind the solo, and then they bring it down to just the groove.

The keyboards get a few licks in here. And now another taste of those twin harmony guitars by Elvin and Johnny V. Another crescendo from the horns and back to the twin guitar riff.

And then the last verse. Let’s back off the vocals and just listen to the groove the band is laying down behind them.

Let’s bring the vocals back up now. Here comes a new little piece with some tasty guitar work. On the studio version of this track, the song just fades out at some point. They added this section, and this is actually where they would end the song live, right there. But by this time, they had added the horn section. And here they let the horns pick it back up right at the break and lead the band into an extended finale. It’s an example of how a song can evolve and grow as it’s performed live.

Listen to the bass and drums build the tension here. And then how the whole band just hits this riff. Listen to that bass.

We continue to build to a big finale. They are not done yet. They are going to squeeze every little bit out of this big ending.

The Elvin Bishop Group, “Calling All Cows”.

Commercial success was fleeting for Elvin Bishop. “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” was his one and only hit. But he’s kept making records and touring. He’s a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, and he’s been nominated for a Grammy for Best Blues Album quite a few times, though he hasn’t won yet. At 83 years old, he’s still playing, still got a shot at that Grammy. Hope he gets one. He deserves it.

Mickey Thomas would leave the Elvin Bishop Group after this live album, and not long after that, he joined Jefferson Starship. I love Mickey Thomas’ voice, and I expect we’ll hear from him on this show again sometime.

You know, Elvin has always portrayed himself as a fun-loving, good time boy, but there’s more to his life than just that image. Honestly, I kind of hesitate to bring this up because I don’t like to sensationalize things, but Elvin has suffered real tragedy and pain in his life. In August of 2000, both Elvin’s wife and his daughter were murdered. I can only imagine the toll that that must have taken on him. And again, I don’t want to play up anyone’s suffering for the sake of a podcast, but I think it’s important to acknowledge Elvin Bishop as a full person and respect what he’s been through and his ability to carry on.

Thanks as always for being a part of this episode. I’ll be back in about two weeks with another new show. Who knows what we’ll be talking about then, but I hope you join us. If you missed any of our previous episodes, you can catch up on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or find us wherever you listen to podcasts. We’re on iTunes and Spotify and YouTube and pretty much everywhere you can listen to podcasts.

If you’d like to support the show– and I hope you do– he first thing you can do is to just tell someone about the show, share it with your friends or family, because it’s recommendations by smart, knowledgeable people like you that really help us out.

On behalf of all the shows here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. Go out and find yourself a copy of Elvin Bishop’s “Raisin’ Hell” album. Crank it up and listen to this version of “Calling All Cows”.

RESOURCES:

Elvin Bishop
https://www.elvinbishopmusic.com

Raisin Hell Album
Raisin’ Hell – Elvin Bishop | Album | AllMusic

Paul Butterfield Blues Band
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-butterfield-blues-band-mn0000019552

East West Album
East-West (The Butterfield Blues Band album) – Wikipedia

Jefferson Starship
https://jeffersonstarship.com

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
https://www.rockhall.com

Blues Hall of Fame
https://blues.org/blues_hall_of_fame/

Saxon – “747 (Strangers In The Night)”

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"747 (Strangers In The Night)" (Words & Music by Byford, Quinn, Oliver Dawson, Gill) Copyright 1980 Carrere Music/Heath Levy Music Co. Ltd. - 2009 Union Square Music Limited, a BMG Company

Saxon came out of England in the 1970’s and quickly established themselves as one of the leading lights of the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal” (NWOBHM). Their 2nd album, Wheels Of Steel, is considered one of the classic Metal albums. On this episode, we dive into “747 (Strangers In The Night)“, one of the hits from this album and remains a concert favorite at any Saxon show.

“747 (Strangers In The Night)” (Words & Music by Byford, Quinn, Oliver Dawson, Gill) Copyright 1980 Carrere Music/Heath Levy Music Co. Ltd. – 2009 Union Square Music Limited, a BMG Company

— Is Rock dead? Of course not! And there’s plenty of podcasts on the Pantheon Network to prove it!

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back, true believers, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m the host of the show, Brad Page, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode of this show, I pick a favorite song to dig into, as we continue our exploration to uncover what makes great songs work. No knowledge of music theory or technical jargon is necessary here. We’re just going to use our ears to listen and see what we discover.

This episode, we’re going back to 1979 to take a look at the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and a song by one of the bands at the forefront of that scene. This is Saxon with a song called “747 (Strangers In The Night)”.

We haven’t touched on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal on this show before. So before we get into the song, let’s talk about that.  If you’re not familiar with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, or as its often abbreviated in print, NWOBHM or “Newabum”– which I find either of those pretty awkward, so I’m just going to keep calling it the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal”.

This was a scene that began in the mid-seventies in England, and by the early eighties it broke big around the world, with bands like Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. The scene really developed in parallel with punk, but it was its own separate thing.

This is, of course, a gross generalization. Like any scene, there’s a lot of complexity when you dig into it. But one of the things that distinguished the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was that they took the core sounds of hard rock and early metal bands like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, and they injected it with some of the energy of punk. It was faster, more aggressive. Again, I’m giving a surface level overview here, but I think you get the idea. The term New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was coined by Jeff Barton, a writer for Sounds magazine, in 1979. There were literally hundreds of bands that came out of that scene, everything from Motorhead and Venom to Girlschool and the Tigers of Pantang. But one of the most successful and long lasting was a band called Saxon.

Though they never cracked the big time in the US, Saxon were huge in England, Europe and Japan. They had eight albums in the UK. Top 44 of them that reached the Top 10, and they’re still making records in touring today.

Saxon came together around 1975, after two separate bands disintegrated. The remaining members merged into a new band they initially called Son of a Bitch. They were negotiating a deal with a French record label, but the label insisted that they change their name to something a little more commercially acceptable. So Saxon was born in July 1978.

Their first album, titled Saxon, was released in 1979. Their second album, “Wheels of Steel”, was released in 1980. It hit number five on the UK chart and generated two hits for them, the title cut, “Wheels of Steel” and “747 (Strangers In The Night)”.

The lineup of this album was Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn on guitars, Steve Dawson on bass, Pete Gill on drums, and Peter “Biff” Byford on vocals. All five band members share writing credit, and the song was produced by Saxon and Pete Hinton.

Biff Byford was watching a BBC documentary about the great northeast blackout that happened in America on November 9, 1965. That started when a 230-kilovolt transmission line in Ontario, Canada, failed, which then caused other lines to go down, eventually bringing down the entire northeastern transmission network. It plunged eastern Canada, parts of seven US states and all of New York, including New York City, into darkness. People were trapped in subways and elevators, supposedly even the airport runway lights went down.

This inspired Biff to write the song. That image of planes coming in to land and the airport lights suddenly go out, the planes forced to divert or circle going nowhere. The song begins with one of the classic metal guitar riffs, with a great guitar solo played over the top.

Let’s check out the guitars here. Just classic heavy guitar tones across the board. Pretty straightforward recording, too. Just a little bit of reverb on the rhythm guitar and some echo on the lead guitar. One is panned left and one is on the right, though there is some crossover on each channel. I believe that’s Graham Oliver on the guitar on the left and Paul Quinn on the solo on the right.

The band breaks here, letting that rhythm guitar come to the front, really establishing that riff before the vocals come in for the first verse. You can really hear that reverb on the guitar during the break.

Biff sings those first two lines solo and then overdubs a harmony with himself on the next two lines. But on the next part of the verse, he sings three lines solo and only harmonizes on the last line.

And that lands us at the first chorus. This is the part of the song that Biff Byford wrote first. He liked the idea of strangers meeting in the night during the blackout. There’s always been a legend that nine months after the blackout, there was a baby boom. I don’t think there’s any evidence to really prove that, but hey, makes for a great punchline to the story. And Biff was tapping into that.

Second verse. Biff mentions a plane, Scandinavian 101, in this verse, based on a real flight involved in the 1965 blackout. The actual plane was Scandinavian Airlines flight 911. The pilot had his eye on the airport landing lights, but when he glanced down at his controls and looked back up, the lights were gone. Dangerously low on fuel, the plane was lucky to make it. Some planes were able to land thanks to a full moon that just happened to be that night. Bits of all of this make it into the song.

Let’s listen to what’s going on musically during the chorus. The two guitars, again panned left and right, are playing the same arpeggio throughout the whole chorus.

But the bass is playing a descending pattern, going lower every four beats. Now, let’s hear that all together, and then we’ll bring the vocals back in.

Here comes another guitar solo. This time it’s Graham Oliver who gets the spotlight. He’s the guy panned to the left. It’s another great solo.

Third and final verse. We’ll focus in on some of Biff Byford’s vocals here.

The Band UFO released an album called “Strangers In The Night” in 1979, a full year before Saxon recorded this album, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Biff Byford was influenced by that title. Biff has said that he probably got the idea from Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers In The Night”. Biff’s actually a Sinatra fan. They return to the Riff here one more time and we get some jet engine sound effects.

One interesting thing is that on the verses, Biff overdubs harmonies with himself, but on the choruses, he doubles the vocal– but it’s not a harmony. He sings them in unison. Both parts are the same.

That’s a nice big raise of the vocal there. And with that, they’ll play out the fade with one final guitar solo from Paul Quinn.

 Saxon – “747 (Strangers In The Night)”

I don’t claim to be the biggest metal fan, but there’s a lot that I do like, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Saxon. I first saw them open for Rush in September 1980, if I remember correctly, and they rocked. Biff was every bit the rock star, and Paul Quinn was almost an anti-rock star.  He had kind of an Angus Young thing going on; he wore a little cap, probably to hide his balding head (which I can relate to), and he spun his guitar around on his chest. I saw him do that long before I ever saw ZZ Top do it. The whole Band was great.

Thanks for listening to the show. New episodes of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll be back here soon. If you’d like to dig into our previous episodes, you’ll find them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or look for us in your favorite podcast app. We’re on Apple and Google and Amazon and Spotify and Pandora and every place that you can think of. So you got no excuse for not joining in on the fun.

Which reminds me, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss an episode. If you’re inclined to support the show, well, you don’t have to spend any money, just leave us a good review and tell a friend about the show. Your recommendation is our best advertising.

I’ll see you next time here on the Pantheon Podcast network. Thanks for being a part of this show on “747 (Strangers In The Night)” by Saxon.

REFERENCES:

Saxon
https://www.saxon747.com/

Wheels of Steel album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Steel

Motorhead
https://imotorhead.com/

Venom
https://www.venomslegions.com/

Girlschool
https://www.girlschool.co.uk/

Tygers of Pan Tang
https://www.tygersofpantang.com/

Jeff Barton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Barton

Sounds magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_(magazine)

The Biggest Albums of 1975

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Music has a unique way of capturing the essence of a time period, and 1975 was no exception. This year stands out in music history as a treasure trove of classic albums that have withstood the test of time, continuing to inspire and resonate with listeners even 50 years later. In the latest episode of the podcast, we take a journey through the iconic records that made 1975 a landmark year in music.

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, according to the calendar, it’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. My name is Brad Page, thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast Network for another exploration of my favorite songs.

And speaking of the calendar, it’s also telling me that we’re in the year 2025 now, and this episode also happens to be episode 175, so the numbers are telling me that this would be a good time to flip the calendar back to the year 1975– 50 years ago– and take a look at some of the incredible records celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. So let’s check it out.

We’ve already explored other great years in music history: 1957, 1965, 1971, 1973… and now with 1975, it’s another incredible year for music. Just a ton of classic albums released this year.

Beginning in January of 1975 with my favorite Bob Dylan album, “Blood On The Tracks”, a masterpiece. We talked about this album back on episode 99 with my buddy Brian Jacobs.

On January 2, 1975, a New York District Court judge ruled that John Lennon could access his Department of Immigration files as part of his deportation case. That was a key step on the road to allowing John to make New York City his home when he finally won the case in October.

Also in January, 1000 Led Zeppelin fans rioted while waiting for tickets to go on sale in Boston, causing the mayor to cancel the show. But three shows in New York at Madison Square Garden sold out in a record 4 hours.

AC/DC released their first album, “High Voltage”, but it only comes out in Australia; the international version of the album wouldn’t come out until 1976.

In February, Rush released “Fly By Night”. It’s their second album, but it’s the first one with Neil Peart on drums.

And getting back to Led Zeppelin, in February, they release “Physical Graffiti”. “Physical graffiti: featured eight new songs and a handful of tracks that had been left off of previous albums, but despite its pieced together nature, it’s a truly iconic album.

March of 1975 saw the release of a bunch of all time classic albums:

“Young Americans” was David Bowie’s 9th album, a total departure from the Ziggy Stardust look and sound, the launch of his plastic soul phase. Also in March, Alice Cooper’s “Welcome To My Nightmare”, his first album without the original Alice Cooper Band.

Earth, Wind and Fire released “That’s The Way Of The World”, their first really big smash album– a fantastic record. We did a deep dive on “Shining Star” on episode 56 of this Podcast.

Also in March, “Dressed to Kill” by Kiss. Steely Dan released “Katy Lied” in March, and Jeff Beck released “Blow By Blow”, one of the greatest guitar albums of all time. Absolutely one of my favorite records.

A few classic records came out in April, too. ZZ Top released “Fandango”, one side recorded live, the other in the studio. This record’s mostly famous for “Tush”, but I think there’s even better songs on this record, like “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings”.

Nazareth released their classic “Hair of the Dog” album in April, and Aerosmith released “Toys In The Attic”.

John Lennon appeared on the Tom Snyder show in April for a pretty famous interview. And on April 24, Pete Ham from Badfinger was found dead. Victim of suicide. Victim of the music business, really. We’ve covered Badfinger on this show a couple of times. I highly recommend you check those episodes out if you haven’t heard them.

In May, the Rolling Stones announced their north American tour by driving down Fifth Avenue in New York City playing “Brown Sugar” on a flatbed truck. Willie Nelson released his classic album “Red Headed Stranger”; Paul McCartney and Wings released “Venus and Mars”, and Elton John released the first of two albums that came out in 1975.

In June of 1975, Cher and Greg Allman got married. Believe it or not, the Talking Heads played their first show at CBGB’s. And Alice Cooper fell off the stage at a show in Canada, breaking six ribs. Bob Dylan and the Band finally released “The Basement Tapes”, originally recorded back in 1967. And Neil Young released “Tonight’s The Night”, his harrowing exploration of drug addiction, death and grief that was originally recorded two years earlier.

Also released in June, “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright, the BeeGee’s “Main Course”, the first album by the Tubes, and “Cut The Cake” by the Average White Band. That’s another one of my favorite albums.

In July, Black Sabbath released “Sabotage”, Fleetwood Mac released their self-titled album– the first with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks– and Lou Reed released “Metal Machine Music”, one of the most divisive albums ever released: A double album with each side featuring 16 minutes of feedback and noise.

1975 was also the year of some significant departures. The Faces broke up, Peter Gabriel left Genesis, and Richie Blackmore quit deep Purple, forming his new band, Rainbow, and releasing their debut album featuring Ronnie James Dio on vocals in August.

Also in August, the Ohio Players released “Honey”, probably their best record. Hall & Oates released their self-titled album, which includes “Sarah Smile”, their first big hit, and Bruce Springsteen releases “Born To Run”.

Also, Grand Funk Railroad released a live album called “Caught In The Act”, which you’re gonna be hearing a little from on this show coming up in the near future.

The classic album train keeps rolling right into September: Pink Floyd released “Wish You Were Here”, ELO released “Face The Music”, Brian Eno’s “Another Green World”. Rush, “Caress Of Steel”, Supertramp “Crisis, What Crisis?”, Foghat, “Fool For The City”… all of those came out in September 1975.

So did Jethro Tull’s “Minstrel In The Gallery”, a pivotal album in their career. And also released in September– an album that really changed my life. It’s probably a safe bet to say that if it wasn’t for this album, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here doing this podcast today. It’s Kiss “Alive”.

October 75 was the month where Bruce Springsteen appeared on the cover of both Time magazine and Newsweek. That was unprecedented at the time. Some unprecedented music came out that month, too: Elton John’s second album of the year, “Rock of the Westies”, Deep Purple’s final album, “Come Taste The Band”, “Siren” by Roxy Music (that’s the album that has “Love Is The Drug” on it), and an album by The Who that I think is really underappreciated: “The Who By Numbers”.

We’re heading into the home stretch here. November 1975 brought us Joni Mitchell’s “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, Neil Young’s “Zuma”, and Patti Smith’s debut album “Horses”, and an album that is the very definition of a classic album: Queen’s “Night at the Opera”.

And 1975 comes to a close in December with Styx “Equinox”, Emmylou Harris’s “Elite Hotel”, her first number one album and an essential “Americana” album long before that term was even coined. Bob Marley and the Wailers released their live album.

And Parliament releases “Mothership Connection”, one of the most significant funk albums of all time. What a way to end the year.

That is just an overview of the music of 1975; we’re just scraping the surface here, here’s so much more. And if I skipped over one of your favorite records, I apologize, but I had to leave off some of my favorites, too. There was just so many great albums that year.

Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope this reminded you of some of the great records you haven’t listened to in a while, or maybe introduced you to some you’ve never heard before. Either way, I encourage you to seek these albums out, give them a listen, because this music still has something to offer us today, 50 years after it was first heard.

If you’d like to support this show, please head over to oldglory.com and order up a t-shirt or two. They have stock on merchandise from most of the artists we heard on this show, so get yourself a shirt from AC/DC or Springsteen, Kiss or Neil Young, or any of your favorite artists. Go to oldglory.com comma use our discount code “lovethatsong”. You’ll get 15% off and you’ll help to support this show. So thanks in advance.

New episodes of this podcast come out on the first and the 15th of every month, so stay tuned for more. And if you’d like to get caught up on our previous episodes– there’s over 174 other shows to listen to– you’ll find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.

On behalf of the whole crew at the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. Now go out and listen to your favorite albums from 1975.

RESOURCES:

Bob Dylan
https://www.bobdylan.com/

Led Zeppelin
https://www.ledzeppelin.com/

David Bowie
https://www.davidbowie.com/

Rush
https://www.rush.com/

AC/DC
https://www.acdc.com/

Bruce Springsteen
https://brucespringsteen.net/

Fleetwood Mac
https://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

Neil Young
https://neilyoungarchives.com/

Queen
https://www.queenonline.com/

Elton John
https://www.eltonjohn.com/

Patti Smith
https://www.pattismith.net/

Pink Floyd
https://www.pinkfloyd.com/

The Who
https://www.thewho.com/

Joni Mitchell
https://jonimitchell.com/

Aerosmith
https://www.aerosmith.com/

Old Glory
https://www.oldglory.com/

Alice Cooper
https://www.alicecooper.com/

Earth, Wind & Fire
https://www.earthwindandfire.com/

Kiss
https://www.kissonline.com/

Pink Floyd – “Have A Cigar”

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by Roger Waters - Copyright 1975 Roger Waters Overseas, Ltd

Pink Floyd has been a cornerstone of rock history, producing some of the most iconic albums ever recorded. One song that stands out in their catalog is “Have a Cigar” from the album Wish You Were Here, a track that offers a scathing critique of the music industry. In the latest episode of the podcast, we dive deep into this song, uncovering what makes “Have a Cigar” a classic.

“Have A Cigar” (Roger Waters) Copyright 1975 Roger Waters Overseas, Ltd

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPTS:

Come on, you ravers, you seers of visions– shine on with the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and every two weeks, we come together here on the Pantheon Podcast Network to explore a different song. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dig into it together, uncovering all the elements that go into making a great song. You don’t have to be a musician or have any technical knowledge– this isn’t a show for just the experts, this is for anyone who just wants to listen and explore what makes a good song great.

In this episode, we’re exploring a real classic. By any measure– artistically, commercially– Pink Floyd were one of the most successful bands of all time. They created a handful of the greatest albums ever released. On this episode of the podcast, we’re exploring a song from an album that came out just about in the middle of their career, an album that represents many things for this band, and the stories of making it are the stuff of legend. From the album “Wish You Were Here”. This is a song called “Have A Cigar”.

Pink Floyd have been covered on this show before: In episode 58, we looked at “Us And Them”, and episode 114 featured “See Emily Play”. If you haven’t heard either of those episodes, go check them out. I’m not going to go over their history again, you can revisit those previous episodes if you’d like. We’re going to pick up where we left off after “Dark Side Of The Moon”.

“Dark Side Of The Moon”, of course, was their breakthrough album. I don’t need to tell you how big that album would become, but it was an important, significant record from the moment it was released. So, for Pink Floyd, the challenge was: what to do next?

The band was searching for a direction. First weeks, then months, went by with not much to show for it. Endless sessions in their rehearsal studio, trying to come up with something. Something not just good, but something to match or top “Dark Side Of The Moon”. That’s no easy task.

Compounding the problem was the fact that fractures were beginning to occur within the band. The pressure of what to do next exacerbated the disagreements between the four band members. Initially, they returned to a concept that they first explored back in 1970. It was a project called “Household Objects”, where they would forego the use of their traditional instruments and create songs using rubber bands, broomsticks, wine glasses, aerosol cans, smashed Light bulbs. They had abandoned that idea before, but now, without any better ideas, they returned to “Household Objects” and spent at least a month in 1973 trying to conjure music from kitchen appliances and hand tools. But ultimately, they abandoned the idea again.

To my knowledge, the only thing that survived from the “Household Objects” project is a two-minute recording of tuned wine glasses, and a three-minute track called “The Hard Way”.  The sound of those wine glasses would be used at the beginning of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, but the rest of it all went by the wayside.

Finally, in January 1974, during one of those endless jam sessions, guitarist David Gilmour stumbled across a four-note phrase. Almost by accident, they took that idea and expanded it, pushing it in different directions and adding new elements, eventually forming it into a song called “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, a multi-part suite that would open and close their new album. They would also take the sound of those wine glasses and incorporate a little bit of that into “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.

The subject of that song, as all Pink Floyd fans know, was their former singer, guitarist and bandleader Syd Barrett. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is a fascinating piece of music worthy of an exploration all on its own. But not in this episode… we’re here for a different song.

So now Roger Waters, the bassist and primary lyricist, had some themes to work with: absence and the harsh realities of the music business, both of which directly related to Syd Barrett, but also extended beyond him.

The actual recording sessions for the album, which would be called “Wish You Were Here”, began at Abbey Road in January 1975, a year after they first came up with that riff that inspired the album. One of the tracks they worked on was a darkly funky track called “Have A Cigar”, a ripping takedown of the music industry, sung from the perspective of a typically greedy, self-serving record executive. It was written by Roger Waters, produced by the band, and performed by David Gilmour on guitars, Richard Wright on keyboards, bass by Roger Waters, drums by Nick Mason and vocals… well, we’ll get there in a minute.

The song begins with a riff played together on the bass and the guitar. Sounds like both the guitars and the bass have a flanger effect on them.

After a couple of playthroughs of the riff, the drums and the keyboards come in. There’s a little whoop sound in there. Let’s back it up a bit.

I like that descending guitar part that leads back into the riff. Here comes the second riff.

There are two synthesizer parts plus an electric piano, each one placed in a different spot in the stereo mix that allows each part to occupy its own space. When you add in the bass, drums and guitars– and I’m sure there’s more than one guitar track here– there’s a lot of music here, but the mix doesn’t feel cluttered at all.

That’s the first of these little guitar and keyboard fills that play off of each other, answer each other. It’s nothing fancy, but I just like the dialogue between the guitar and the piano throughout the song. Let’s pick it back up from there.

And it sounds to me like Richard Wright has also added a clavinet part now. 

And here’s the first verse. But that voice doesn’t belong to anyone in Pink Floyd. When it came time to record the vocals for this track, both David Gilmour and Roger Waters took a stab at it, but neither of them were happy with their performance. Just by happenstance, a singer songwriter guitarist named Roy Harper was recording his own album next door. Roy Harper is a fairly obscure figure, certainly in the United States, he’s never had any hits here and never got much radio play. If Americans know his name at all, it’s likely from the song title of the Led Zeppelin song “Hats Off To Roy Harper”. But Roy Harper is a brilliant British folk-rock songwriter and performer who has released a number of unique, and you could say eccentric, albums. He’s a musician’s musician, a songwriter’s songwriter. And he was friendly with the guys in Pink Floyd. Since they were both working on albums at Abbey Road, they would pop in to visit each other’s sessions. He watched Pink Floyd wrestle with the vocals on this track for days and eventually, he offered to sing it for them.

Here’s a little bit of the version with Roger Waters attempt at the vocal. It’s really not that drastically different, but Roy Harper brought a wonderfully acerbic tone to the track. Roy had his share of misfortune at the hands of record companies, so he could relate to these lyrics for sure.

That’s one of the best lines in the whole Pink Floyd canon. The idea that this record company bigwig who’s trying to schmooze them doesn’t even know that there’s no one in the band actually named Pink Floyd.

I love the way he elongates the word “train” and twists his phrasing at the end.

Sounds like he’s double tracked his vocal there too.

Here comes the second verse. You know, I’ve listened to this song so many times, but I never really noticed until now just how much work the keyboards are doing here. I’m even hearing a little bit of Stevie Wonder influence in there.

Let’s bring up the vocals again. Roy Harper is just killing it here.

So that brings us to the guitar solo. It’s another classic solo by David Gilmour. And we’ll listen to that in a minute. But first I wanted to focus on the rhythm section for a bit. I think it’s fair to say that neither Nick Mason or Roger Waters are virtuosos. Nick Mason is not a flashy drummer, but he’s rock solid. And neither he or Roger Waters are exactly funky players, but they’re laying down a pretty cool groove here. So let’s just listen to that for a while.

Alright, now let’s go back and listen again with the guitar solo.

Let’s bring up that guitar.

And now, we get a change of audio perspectives, as a synthesized “whoosh” repositions us,  as though were listening to the song now through an old transistor radio.

And that, of course for everyone who’s familiar with the album, leads us into the next song, “Wish You Were Here”. But that’s another story.

“Have A Cigar” by Pink Floyd. The “Wish You Were Here” album was released in September 1975 and topped the charts in the US and the UK. It is still regarded as one of Pink Floyd’s best albums. In fact, I believe it is David Gilmour’s favorite Pink Floyd album.

But it was the beginning of the end of the band. Roger Waters had taken over creative control and over time, would push the other members further away. Richard Wright was essentially fired from the band and then rehired as a session player for the group. Eventually, Roger Waters pushed himself out of the band.

But despite the personal unpleasantness, “Wish You Were Here” is a really cohesive album. Every band member contributes excellent performances, and the album flows perfectly as a whole. It’s a masterpiece.

Richard Wright died from lung cancer in September 2008. He was 65. Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Roy Harper are still with us today at the time of this recording.

Thanks for being a part of this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. If you’d like to support the show, why don’t you head over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or two? They have a bunch of Pink Floyd shirts in stock, along with a ton of other bands, and if you use our promo code, “LoveThatSong”, you’ll get 15% off and you’ll be supporting the show. So thanks in advance.

You can find our previous episodes on Pink Floyd, along with over 150 other songs that we’ve covered, on our website lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for them in your favorite podcast app. Send us an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com or post your comments and feedback on our Facebook page. And of course, it would be great if you left us a rating or a review wherever it is that you listen to this show.

We are part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, home to a ton of other great podcasts, all featuring the music we love.

I will be back in about two weeks, so let’s meet here again. Until then, thanks for listening to this episode on Pink Floyd and “Have A Cigar”.

RESOURCES:

Pink Floyd
https://www.pinkfloyd.com

Wish You Were Here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_album)

Dark Side of the Moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon

Roy Harper
https://royharper.co.uk

Abbey Road Studios
https://www.abbeyroad.com

Broken Homes – “An L.A. Rain”

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"An L.A. Rain" (Mike Doman) Copyright 1986

For one hot moment, Broken Homes were the buzzed-about new band in LA, and big success was ahead. It never materialized. The band cut 3 albums for MCA, but they went nowhere. On this episode, we dig into a track from their first album, one of my favorite LP’s from the ’80’s and a real “desert island” record for me. The album never came out on CD, but if you can track down a copy on vinyl, I highly recommend it.

“An L.A. Rain” (Mike Doman) Copyright 1986

TRANSCRIPT:

The human ear is a pretty remarkable device. You can detect variations of less than 1,000,000,000th of atmospheric pressure. It can detect vibrations of your eardrum that move less than the width of one atom. Pretty incredible when you think about it. Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, where we put these amazing ears of ours to good use as we explore what goes into making a great song. You don’t need a lot of musical experience or knowledge here. You just need to use those extraordinary ears and see what we discover. I’m your host, Brad Page. We are part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, and today we’re listening to “An LA Rain” by Broken Homes.

Usually on this show, we have a lot of history to set up before we get into the song. You know, with artists that have been around for years, you have to put these songs in context. We did a Fleetwood Mac episode earlier this year that took 20 minutes of setup before we even got to the song. But on this episode, we’re talking about a band with not a lot of history to go on. In fact, there isn’t even a Wikipedia page for these guys.

Broken Homes were formed in the mid-eighties by singer Mike Doman and guitarist Craig Ross. The band got together in LA, but Mike Doman had come from the east coast–Pennsylvania, I believe– and he brought a rootsy, working class, kind of East Coast Rock and Roll sound with him. It’s very different from the hair metal bands that were big in LA in the middle of the eighties.

They recruited a drummer named Craig Aronson and started working out material. A bass player named James Ashurst was finishing up a gig one night with another band when they asked him to join the Broken Homes. They had a big gig lined up at the Roxy coming up pretty soon. They played that gig on a Friday night, and by Monday morning, they were signing a record contract with MCA Records.

Broken Homes didn’t fit in with the Sunset Strip sound at that time. Their sound was closer to bands like X or Lone Justice: straight-ahead traditional rock and roll, with a little bit of country and punk thrown in. But they became one of the hottest bands on the LA scene at the time. In 1986, they went into Ocean Way Studios, one of the greatest studios in LA and used to be known as United Western, and they recorded their first album with producer Jeff Eyrich.

The song we’re listening to here is called “An LA Rain”. It’s track number two on the album. It was written by Mike Doman. Mike is on lead vocals and probably a little guitar. Craig Ross does most of the guitar work. Jimmy Ashurst is on bass and Don Harvey is on drums. Producer Jeff Eyrich wasn’t convinced that their drummer, Craig Aronson, was up to the challenge of making this record. So, he brought in a drummer named Don Harvey, who had been playing with Charlie Sexton at the time. This had to be handled sensitively. They didn’t want to mess with the image of this being a tight knit, hard workin’ rock and roll band. I mean, all four band members names, including Craig Aronson, are, right there on the front cover of the album, even though Aronson didn’t actually play drums on the record. But if you look closely on the back cover in small print, it says “special thanks to Don Harvey, Drums”.

The song opens with what sounds to me like three guitar parts. One acoustic guitar in the center, possibly with a capo on it to raise the pitch. An electric guitar that’s panned left. Both of those are strumming chords. And another electric guitar on the right that’s playing a nice little part. Could be some chorus effect on that. Another thing to note is that most, if not all of the guitars are played in open G tuning. That’s a big part of what gives this track that blues based Americana by way of the rolling stones kind of rock and roll sound.

Now this intro will take us right into the first verse, and it’s an abrupt change. The bass, drums and vocals are all come in. The acoustic guitars are dropped, leaving one electric guitar now moved to the center. Let’s pick it back up from the top.

The bass and drums are providing a rock solid foundation here. Jimmy Ashurst’s bass is laying down a simple part that just fits perfectly. And Don Harvey’s drums are locked right into that groove. It’s a great drum sound. Probably starts with the natural room sound at Oceanway Studios, where this album was recorded, with some additional reverb added to make it sound even bigger.

Now, the story that Mike Doman is telling us here is that he’s driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible in the pouring rain, with the top down. Somehow he’s asleep at the wheel– his girl wakes him up just in tim,e as he sings “To ride a wall of water down the PCH”, and with that, we’ll ride right along with him into the chorus.

Once we hit that chorus, the sound opens up. That single electric guitar is now augmented by at least three additional guitars, left, right and center. One of the guitars is playing in a higher register, probably using that capo. It’s almost a mandolin like sound. None of the parts are particularly complex. Some of the guitars are just strumming and holding a single chord, but each one is playing in a different register, occupying its own frequency range. And each part is placed carefully in the mix, so that nothing is stepping on each other. Let’s listen to just those instrumental tracks.

When you take that and add some harmony vocals, it just makes this chorus bloom. Let’s go back and listen to this again. Listen to how when we hit this chorus, the sound just opens up. It’s like the audio equivalent of switching to widescreen. If you can listen on headphones, all the better. But you should be able to hear it bloom listening in your car or wherever it is that you’re hearing this now. This is the kind of production technique that I absolutely love.

This brings us to the second verse. And what I kind of like about this one is that, you know, usually with these songs, it’s a guy hitting on some girl, usually an underage girl. It’s always a little skeevy; but here, he’s flirting with a woman who’s a little older. Mike Doman was probably in his early twenties when he wrote this song. The woman he’s singing about has an ID that says she’s 24, but she’s really 31. But he’s into it.

Rewind and listen to the backing track here. I particularly like the Keith Richards influenced guitar that Craig Ross is laying down here.

It’s time for this second chorus. Let’s listen to just Mike Doman’s vocals first. I believe all of the parts are sung by Mike Doman.

Here’s that chorus again in the final mix. I love the drums on that part there, where they take a little pause with the tom fill and then hit hard on the second beat. Let’s play that chorus from the top again.

That transitions right into the bridge. The band pulls back a bit before it builds back up. Now, I think there might be a piano added to the mix here. Maybe an electric piano. It’s pretty low in the mix. Could be another guitar. Let’s listen to some of those instrumental tracks, see what you think.

Let’s hear all of the parts on the bridge. Now at the end, Mike is going to repeat the phrase “There was rainwater in my ears” multiple times. But each time, he sings it differently. And the more emphatically he sings it, the more it kind of makes you wonder how much he really means it. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “doth he protest too much?”

Listen to how they build the song back up. The bass and drums are doing the heavy lifting there. Let’s hear their part.

And that buildup takes us into another variation of the chorus.

Okay, first let’s go back and listen to Mike Doman’s vocals leading into the break here.

Now let’s listen to Craig Ross’s guitar part here. What he’s doing is taking his E string and detuning it. He’s not using a whammy bar, hs actually cranking his tuning peg down, turning it with his left hand while he plucks the string with his right. The string goes all the way slack. And then he cranks it back up to pitch and starts playing the riff again. Totally cool. Give it up for Craig Ross.

Let’s hear all of that together as it sounds in the final mix.

Now here comes a new part. Craig’s electric guitar is joined by an acoustic guitar. Strumming chords in the background with a very clean sounding electric guitar. Playing some simple lead lines. And listen to the drum fills here. Don Harvey is playing some simple fills, but they sound great. Just the right amount of reverb on them. This is a great drum sound.

Let’s bring up Mike’s vocals from the background there.

And there is a killer drum fill that leads us into this final chorus. So let’s check that out.

And now, as the song begins to fade out, you can hear that piano come forward a bit in the mix.

“An LA Rain” by Broken Homes.

The album was released in 1986 and big things were expected… but nothing happened. They just didn’t catch on. They toured hard as an opening act for some great bands, and certainly put in the work, but they just couldn’t seem to get any traction, and there was zero radio play.

But I love this record. Seriously. This is a Desert Island Album for me.

Broken Homes would record two more albums, a total of three albums that never went anywhere. And eventually they split up.

Who knows why some bands never take off. You could blame the record company, MCA. It’s a little tricky, I think, because MCA did stick with them for three albums, something that would never happen today—they’d be dropped after their first album. So I guess you got to give the label credit for that. But at the same time, I don’t think MCA knew how to market them. They just didn’t know what to do with this band.

Bass player Jimmy Ashurst said something very smart about this. Looking back on it years later, he said “Record companies still don’t know how to market for classic rock when it’s not yet ‘classic’, when it’s being made today; there’s no path for that.”

Jimmy Ashurst went on to play with Izzy Stradlin in the Juju Hounds and later was a member of Buckcherry. He also wrestled with heroin addiction and did some time in prison, but I believe he’s clean now.

Guitarist Craig Ross became the guitar player for Lenny Kravitz. He’s the guy with the big hair in all of those Lenny Kravitz videos, and he still works with Lenny today. Craig’s done quite well for himself.

Drummer Craig Aronson would leave the band after this first album. He was replaced by Michael Graves. Aronson would become an A&R man and was the guy who signed Jimmy Eats World and My Chemical Romance, just to name a few. Aronson died of cancer in 2014.

Michael Doman would kick around the music business for years, and would continue to be a great singer and songwriter. Unfortunately, Michael passed away in December of 2020.

I highly recommend the first two Broken Homes albums, especially this album, the debut album. It’s just called “Broken Homes”. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to find. It never came out on CD. You can find it on YouTube, but you’ve got to work a little bit to find the right Broken Homes. But it is worth it.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the first and the 15th of every month, so well be back soon with another new show. Until then, you can catch up on all of our previous shows right on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Or just search for us in your favorite podcast app: Spotify, Google, Apple, Stitcher, Amazon, you name it– you can find us on every podcast app.

Post your reviews or comments on our Facebook page, or on Podchaser, or wherever it is that you listen to the show. And if you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it and share it with your friends, because your word-of-mouth is the most valuable resource for any podcast.

On behalf of everyone here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening to our shows, and especially for listening to this episode on Broken Homes and “An LA Rain”.

RESOURCES:

Broken Homes
No direct link as there’s no Wikipedia page

Ocean Way Studios
https://www.oceanwaystudios.com/

Lenny Kravitz
http://www.lennykravitz.com/

Podchaser
https://www.podchaser.com/

Aerosmith – “Back In The Saddle”

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"Back In The Saddle" (Steven Tyler & Joe Perry) Copyright 1977 Music Of Stage Three, All Rights Administered by Stage Three Music US Inc.

Aerosmith were at their commercial & creative peak in 1976 when they released Rocks, a high-water mark in their career.  The album opens with “Back In The Saddle”, one of their hardest-rocking songs and the perfect way to kick off their heaviest album.  There’s lots to uncover in this song, so join us for this episode where we explore this classic track.

“Back In The Saddle” (Steven Tyler & Joe Perry) Copyright 1977 Music Of Stage Three, All Rights Administered by Stage Three Music US Inc.

PREVIEW:

Save 15% off t-shirts & merch from Aerosmith and your favorite bands by using our discount code lovethatsong at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

It’s time to open up pandora’s box for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I am your master of ceremonies, Brad Page, and this is the Pantheon Podcast network. Each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together as we continue our quest to understand what makes a song great. As always, no musical skill or expertise is needed here. This show is open to anyone willing and able to listen.

Aerosmith, one of the greatest American bands, was supposed to be on their final tour, going out in style. But singer Steven Tyler suffered a serious vocal injury last year. They had to delay the tour, rescheduling it a couple of times, but sadly, they just announced last month that they have to cancel the entire tour– Steven’s injury was just too severe. And with that, Aerosmith’s career as a live, touring band came to an abrupt end. Unfortunately, the band will not be back in the saddle again. So I thought it would be fitting to revisit this classic track from one of their greatest albums. This is Aerosmith with “Back In The Saddle”.

We’ve featured Aerosmith on this podcast before; we covered “Seasons Of Wither” back on episode 23, and “Kings and Queens” on episode 97. So, I’m not going to rehash the whole Aerosmith history here, but let’s just set the stage for this particular track.

In 1976, Aerosmith were riding high on the success of their third album, “Toys in the Attic”. They had just finished a lengthy tour supporting that album, and after a short break, they reconvened at the band’s rehearsal space.

The year before, 1975, the band was looking for a place to rehearse. Ray Tabano was originally their guitarist, but when he was replaced by Brad Whitford, he became sort of their assistant and their fan club manager. They sent Ray on a mission to find a new place for them to practice and kind of a home base for the band. Ray found an empty building on Pond Street in Waltham, Massachusetts, not far from Boston, which they leased, rewired, built a stage, and turned into their clubhouse. They called it “A Wherehouse”. The Wherehouse became their band office as well as their rehearsal space, and it was a place they all felt comfortable.

Producer Jack Douglas, who had produced their last two albums, was there with them, helping them to develop and work out new songs for their next album. They decided, rather than move everything into a formal studio, they would just record the album right there at the Wherehouse. So, Jack brought in the Record Plant’s remote recording truck, and he mic’d up the Wherehouse,m trying to capture that raw live sound. They spent about six weeks hammering out the songs and laying down the basic tracks. Then the band took the tapes into the Record Plant studio in New York to record the vocals and the guitar overdubs.

The finished album, dubbed “Rocks”, was released on May 14, 1976. It was their hardest-rocking album to date. In fact, looking back now at their entire catalog, it’s still the hardest rocking album that Aerosmith ever made. For many fans, this is their favorite Aerosmith album, and “Back In The Saddle” is the track that opens the record.

It was written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, was produced by Jack Douglas and the band, and was performed by Steven Tyler on vocals, Joey Kramer on drums, Brad Whitford on guitar, Tom Hamilton on bass, and Joe Perry on guitar and six string bass. Joe Perry had purchased a Fender Bass VI, which more or less plays like a regular guitar, but it’s tuned an octave lower, like a bass. If you’ve seen The Beatles “Get Back” documentary, then you’ve seen John Lennon play a Bass VI in that film. But Joe Perry was inspired to pick up a Bass VI because one of his guitar heroes, Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac, used to play one. In fact, back on episode 67 of this podcast, we explored the Fleetwood Mac track “The Green Manalishi” and talked about Peter Green and his six-string bass. Then here’s a little bit of Peter Green on his six-string bass.

So, inspired by Peter Green, Joe Perry got himself a six-string bass and started messing around with it. According to Joe himself, he was in his bedroom, lying on the floor on his back, wasted on heroin, when he came up with the riff for “Back In The Saddle”.

The song begins with a long, slow buildup. You can hear the sound of a horse galloping. According to legend, that’s Steven Tyler tapping two coconuts together, Monty Python style. I don’t know if that’s really true or not, but I like to picture that in my head.

And you can hear the horse winnying in the background of the right channel, and that launches us right into the chorus. It’s not exactly unusual for a song to start with the chorus, but it is a little uncommon.

Before we go further, let’s listen to Joe Perry’s six-string bass riff. That was the genesis of this song. That is one brutal riff.

For Stephen Tyler’s voice, Jack Douglas used a particular type of microphone referred to as a shotgun mic. Very unusual choice for a lead vocal mic. Shotgun mics are extremely directional and mostly used to focus on a sound that’s very far away. In this case, it really captures all of the rasp and the ragged edge of Tyler’s voice. It also sounds like Douglas used quite a bit of compression on this vocal track, which accentuates that even more.

While they were at the record plant working on overdubs, the idea of being back in the saddle came up.  With a new album coming out, the band would be saddling up and hitting the road again. It reminded Jack Douglas of that old song by Gene Autry, “Back In The Saddle

For Steven Tyler, because he’s Steven Tyler, “back in the saddle” meant having sex with his girlfriend again. But he took these ideas and his notepad and went into the stairwell at the Record Plant. He liked to go there for some quiet and privacy, and that’s where he wrote the lyrics to this song.

You can hear the footsteps there of our main character, his spurs jangling. This was achieved by taping tambourines and bells to Steven Tyler’s boots and then recording him stomping on a piece of plywood.

He mentions the Crazy Horse Saloon and a woman named Suki Jones. He just made those names up. But sometimes characters take on a life of their own. Stephen Adler, the former drummer for Guns N’ Roses, loved this song so much, he named his band Suki Jones.

Throughout the song, there’s a couple of guitars, one on the left, one on the right channel, just making these wild noises, bending and pulling notes and wrangling with their whammy bars. There is also, very low in the mix, two other guitars, one electric and one acoustic– in fact, the acoustic might even be in Nashville tuning– that are hammering on this droning part in the background. Let’s listen to these guitars.

Let’s pick it back up at the second chorus.

That brings us to the second verse. Let’s look at some of the parts that make up the verse. First, let’s hear just the guitars. And this includes the six-string bass.

Then you have the rhythm section with Joey Kramer’s drums and Tom Hamilton playing the regular four-string bass.

All right, let’s hear that all together.

There are some guitar licks in the mix there. I believe those are played by Brad Whitford. Let’s go back and listen to those.

Let’s go back and hear those in context.

There are some really intense Steven Tyler vocals there, enhanced by the use of that microphone and the compression. Let’s hear just that vocal track peeling off.

Let’s go back and listen to the guitars that play under that chorus. And there are more of those clip-clopping steps that are mixed pretty tightly with the drums. You don’t really notice them in the final mix, but you’ll hear them clearly here.

We’ll back it up again and play into the next section.

This is one of my favorite parts of the song. There’s a harmony added to the lead vocal.

The six-string bass is playing another great part. And notice how they’ve added a flanger to it to give it that swirling sound.

The bass and drums are just really driving forward and the layered guitars are really adding a lot of texture. Notice when the acoustic guitar doubles that little descending part. Let’s hear that all together again.

We’re going to hear another chorus. And then there’s a guitar solo that’s off to one side and fairly low in the mix, but we’ll fade some of the other tracks in and out so that you can hear that guitar part a little clearer.

Steven Tyler actually yodels there. You can hear that in the left channel.

There’s more of that Steven Tyler nonsense. Obviously, they were having a lot of fun in the studio with this track. You can hear the sound of a whip cracking. They actually brought a bullwhip into the studio, trying to capture the sound of a real whip. But after a few hours of messing around with the whip, all they ended up with was some cuts and bruises with no usable sounds. So, Steven Tyler ended up whirling a microphone cable around, and they used a cap gun for the sound of the whip cracking. So let’s hear all of that, along with a little more of those backing guitar tracks.

And while all of that is going, on mostly in the left channel, there’s some nice guitar playing going on in the right. So let’s check that out.

Aerosmith – “Back In The Saddle”

Joe Perry and Brad Whifford would leave the band a few years later, Joe in 1979 and Brad in ‘81. But of course, they reunited in 1984, and Aerosmith went on to do the unthinkable: they became even bigger after their reunion.

Very few bands get a second chance at success. You can count on one hand the number of bands who achieved greater success the second time around. Aerosmith is one of them, and they maintained that success for a long time. Say what you will about Aerosmith, but what they’ve done is unprecedented.

The other thing, too, is that all five original members are still with us. There have been dangerous drug habits, overdoses, car accidents. Joe Perry even had a heart attack on stage a few years ago. But at the time of this recording, they’re all still alive. Just the fact that all five of them still walk the planet is some kind of miracle. If this truly is the end of the line, I’m gonna miss them. But they’ve left behind some incredible records and some of my favorite music of all time.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. You’ll find new episodes of this show on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll see you back here in about two weeks. Until then, you can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.

We always appreciate your reviews and your comments, and please go tell a friend about this show. Your help in spreading the word is better than any advertising we could ever pay for.

In these trying times for musicians, whether they’re legacy artists or new acts, remember to support the artists you love by buying their music. And thanks for jumping “Back In The Saddle” with Aerosmith.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Aerosmith
https://www.aerosmith.com/

Toys in the Attic Album
https://www.allmusic.com/album/toys-in-the-attic-mw0000192339

Rocks Album
https://www.allmusic.com/album/rocks-mw0000189173

Fender Bass VI
https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-basses/other/six-string-bass/

The Beatles ‘Get Back’ Documentary
https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-beatles-get-back/4SrN28ZjDLwH

Fleetwood Mac
https://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

Gene Autry
https://www.genautry.com/

Record Plant Studio
http://recordplant.com/

Suki Jones Band
https://www.discogs.com/artist/

Big Star – “September Gurls”

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“September Gurls” (Alex Chilton) Copyright 1974 Koala Music Corporation/Almo Music Corporation, USA

One song can’t really define a whole genre, but “September Gurls” by Big Star comes pretty damn close – it IS the sound of Power Pop.  Jangly guitars, plaintive vocal, angelic harmonies, all neatly wrapped up in under 3 minutes.  It became a template to inspire bands as diverse as R.E.M., Cheap Trick, The Bangles, KISS, and The Replacements.  Discover why Big Star is often called “the most influential band you’ve never heard of”.

“September Gurls” (Alex Chilton) Copyright 1974 Koala Music Corporation/Almo Music Corporation, USA

Save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands by using our discount code lovethatsong at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome, seekers of knowledge and keepers of the flame. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, part of the Pantheon family of podcasts. My name is Brad Page, and each edition of this podcast, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together on our mission to understand how great songs come together. We don’t get into music theory here; no musical expertise is necessary. We’ll spend our time looking at the arrangements, the performances, and the production that make each song great.

Today we’ll be listening to one of the defining bands in power pop history. In fact, this is one of the defining songs of the power pop genre. People often talk about artists that were overlooked or not appreciated in their day, but went on to become legends and inspirations for future generations. Well, there is no band that exemplifies that better than this band. In fact, this band is the poster child for “the most influential band you’ve never heard of”. This is Big Star and their classic song, “September Gurls”. We covered Big Star on this podcast before, back on episode number 73, where we explored “The Ballad of El Goodo”, a song from their first album released in 1972.  So, on this podcast, we’ll pick up the story where that episode left off.

They called that first album “#1 Record”, somewhat ironically, but also with high hopes– and rightly so, because that album is a masterpiece. It got great critical reviews. But there was one big problem. The album was distributed by Stax Records, and Stax was going through a rough time at that point. They didn’t have the money or the ability to promote it or distribute it properly. So even when the band got good reviews or got some radio play, people couldn’t buy the record in the stores because the stores just didn’t have it. It’s pretty hard to sell an album when it’s not on the shelf. So, the record flopped commercially.

Guitarist and singer Chris Bell, who was really the driving force behind the band up until that point, fell into a deep depression, and in November 1972, he quit the band. The remaining three members stuck together for a while, and though they never officially broke up then, they weren’t really working together either. Enter John King, who was working on promotion at Ardent Studios, which was Big Star’s home base. And he came up with this idea to hold a rock writers convention in Memphis. The critics were the one audience who had found Big Star. So, John King invited 150 rock writers and record industry people to the Holiday Inn for a two-day convention. Most of the big names and rock criticism were there. Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, Cameron Crowe, Ed Ward, Stanley Booth– they were all there for this convention, which was really just an excuse for Big Star to play a show in front of a receptive and very influential audience. So the three remaining members played the gig, and the critics loved them. That gave the band some hope that maybe it was worth making a second album.

So the band went back to work as a three piece. Jody Stevens on drums, Andy Hummel on bass, and Alex Chilton on guitar and lead vocals. The resulting album was called “Radio City”, released in February 1974. The recording was done very efficiently with John Fry producing. The basic tracks were recorded in one, two, maybe three takes. The drums were recorded with a minimal amount of microphones, just four mics. But those mics were meticulously placed, resulting in one of the great drum sounds.

Andy Hummel primarily played a Fender Precision bass, plugged directly into the console, with some vintage tube compression applied. And Alex Chilton played a Fender Stratocaster most of the time, through either a Fender or a Hiwatt amp.

The song “September Gurls” is nestled away towards the end of side two of the album. Considering that, to many people, this song is like the ultimate Big Star song, if not the ultimate power pop song, it’s kind of shocking that it’s unceremoniously placed where it is on the record. You’d expect it to get a more prominent placement. “September Gurls”, and that’s girls spelled with a “u” – g-u-r-l-s, was written by Alex Chilton. It was performed by Alex Chilton, Jody Stevens and Andy Hummel, and produced by the band with John Fry. It clocks in at two minutes and 49 seconds. Tight, sweet, perfect.  Not a second wasted.

It opens with the sound of Alex Chilton’s Fender Stratocaster mixed towards the right channel. You can hear Andy Hummels bass note come in there, too.

Now, one of the defining characteristics of power pop is what’s often described as the sound of “chiming” guitars. Well, what does that mean? What is a chiming guitar sound? Well, I submit that this is the textbook example of a “chiming guitar”. And you also hear the first few notes of another guitar part there, panned to the center. That is Alex Chilton playing a mando guitar. A mando guitar has a body shape and roughly the size of a mandolin, but it’s tuned like a guitar. It’s also a solid body electric, not an acoustic instrument. Alex will overdub parts on the mando guitar throughout the song.

And that’s it. Just those two guitar tracks, the Strat and the mando guitar. But as we play through the song, listen to how rich and full this song sounds with just those two parts.

Let’s listen to just the backing track there. The bass, drums and guitar were all recorded live, and this was actually done on the second take, with the mando guitar overdubbed. And that part is really just doing some minimal ornamentation here.

Now let’s hear that again, this time with the vocals, and we’ll play through the first chorus.

The mando guitar is playing a descending, arpeggiated part that’s simple, but just perfect. Then there’s a short little interlude before the second verse, with the mando guitar playing some fills.

Let’s listen to the bass and the drums during this verse. Again, it’s not complex, but I just really like what they’re doing here.

Now let’s spend a minute with Alex Chilton’s vocals. To me, Alex always had this wistful, plaintive ache to his voice that adds some poignancy to his vocals. Even if the lyrics aren’t particularly deep, the emotion is there.

That gets us to the bridge, or what’s often referred to as the middle eight, because typically it takes up eight bars. Although in this case, I think it’s just seven. Here’s that instrumental track, without the vocals, that segues into a guitar solo played on the mando guitar.

But what I really like here are the backing vocals. That drum fill is great. It’s just this cathartic release before the final verse. I like how all the instruments pause to let Jody Stevens become the focus for a second, before they come back in for the verse. Let’s hear that again.

Let’s bring up the vocals one more time.

I love that little vocal “woo” at the end there. Let’s play that back.

And the backing vocals return here, too. And that’s another great drum fill from Jody Stevens.

“September Gurls” by Big Star.

They released the album “Radio City” in February 1974 and hoped this time, things would go better. But they didn’t. This time it was Columbia Records who dropped the ball. They had taken over distribution, but in the end, they had no real interest in Big Star and made little, if any, attempt to support the album. It sold 10,000, maybe 20,000 copies. That’s hardly anything for a nationally released record. It disappeared, and with it went any hope of success.

Andy Hummel was the next to quit. He left and went back to college. The band played a few more gigs with John Lightman on bass, but that was it. Alex and Jody did go back into the studio to record some more tracks, which were eventually released as their third album. It was called either “Third” or “Sister Lovers”, depending on which version you got. That is a profoundly strange album. Nothing like the first two, but for some people, that’s their favorite Big Star album.

Chris Bell, the original guitarist, singer, and songwriter for Big Star, died in a car accident on December 27, 1978. Unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see the band that he put his heart and soul into finally get its due in the mid-nineties.

Alex and Jody reformed Big Star, released some live albums and cut an album of all new material in 2005. Alex Chilton died of a heart attack on March 17, 2010. Andy Hummel, who didn’t participate in the reunion, passed away from cancer on July 19, 2010.

But at the time of this recording, Jody Stevens is still with us, still playing drums, and he’s now the CEO of Ardent Studios.

There’s a pretty decent documentary about Big Star, it’s called “Nothing Can Hurt Me”, which I’m sure is available on one of the streaming services. If you’d like to know more about Big Star, check it out.

And thanks for checking out this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. A new episode will be coming your way very soon, and all of our previous episodes, including the other one on Big Star, they’re all available on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you to leave a review of the show and to “like and subscribe” to the show. I guess if you’ve never listened to a podcast before, then you wouldn’t know the drill, but I think you all know what to do. Sharing the show with your friends really does help, though, so that’d be great.

We are part of the Pantheon podcast network, home of the greatest music related podcasts. Thanks for listening to this episode on Big Star and “September Gurls”.

RESOURCES:

Big Star
https://www.bigstarband.com/

Stax Records
https://staxrecords.com/

Ardent Studios
http://ardentstudios.com/

Fender
https://www.fender.com/

Hiwatt
http://www.hiwatt.co.uk/