Many Beatles fans echo the thoughts of Beatles producer Sir George Martin in believing that a great single-disc album would have resulted from culling the best tracks from the two-disc "White Album" and eliminating the weaker tunes. Says Martin, "I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed." What songs to keep and which ones to cut ("I was underwhelmed because some of (the songs) weren't great" - Martin) was a question a friend of mine, Ed "Terminator" Thrane, and I grappled with almost a decade ago. Ed's list was heavy on the Lennon, for he was a huge Beatle John mark. Ed preferred my list, based not so much on my selections as in the order I listed the songs. Both lists have been lost to posterity; here, I try to recreate my list.
SIDE ONE
1. Back in the USSR: Just as on the White Album, I feel this Paul McCartney homage to the Beach Boys makes an ideal opening track. For the record, Paul was the drummer on this track.
2. Yer Blues: Song placement on a Beatles album was always premeditated, as opposed to tracks just being haphazardly organized onto two sides of an LP. One great thing about listening to a Beatles album was after hearing, say, an endearing children's song (Yellow Submarine), you immediately get socked with the psychedelic, LSD-influenced She Said, She Said. Their albums just flowed eclecticaly but naturally from track-to-track, especially on their greatest works, which would be A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, Revolver (the greatest album of all-time), and Abbey Road.
Here, following the light-hearted opening track, I follow it with John's blues parody, and it was this roller-coaster of emotions from track-to-track that my friend Ed responded so favorably towards.
3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: Not the favorite track of, say, John or George Harrison, and I include this upbeat, whimsical (and I am being charitable here) song because it is one of the most well-known tracks on the album and to avoid making my single disc too loaded with Lennon tracks.
4. Julia: Certain lines in John's pensive ballad to his deceased mother have always touched me.
5. Birthday: Another of the more renowned songs on the album. Placing a party song right after a maudlin ballad has a certain hilarity about it. And, Paul's song also rocks!
6. I'm So Tired: One of John's greatest songs as a Beatle.
7. Why Don't We Do it In the Road?: From their first release, Please Please Me, up through Revolver, each Beatles British LP had exactly fourteen tracks, seven on each side. Here, I take artistic license by adding an eighth song to my Side One, and this brief song is the extra track. I love the ominous organ and Paul's gritty vocals. (The history of how Beatles British LPs became corrupted with different tracks and/or different album titles when released in America is well-known, and I see no point in recounting it here.)
8. While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Early Beatles albums contained either Lennon-McCartney songs or covers, save for George Harrison's Don't Bother Me on the second LP With the Beatles. This pattern started to change on the Help! LP, which featured two slight Harrison tracks (I Need You, You Like Me Too Much). Harrison's contributions to Rubber Soul and to Revolver showed his blossoming songwriting skills. On the last song of my Side One, George (with Eric Clapton on guitar) gives us a future Classic Rock standard.
SIDE TWO
1. Martha My Dear: Paul's ode to his dog, a theme he would return to later in life with equally good results (Jet-1973).
2. Glass Onion: Lennon's witty song addressed to the Beatles fans who read too much into his songs. I like the version of Glass Onion on Beatles Anthology 3 even better, with the shattered glass special effects. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill would also fit nicely in this slot.
3. Mother Nature's Son: This song of Paul's has some beautiful parts to it, and is better than Paul's Blackbird, also on the album.
4. Savoy Truffle: George stated that this song was inspired by a toothache of Eric Clapton's. Without this song and Cry, Baby, Cry, side four of the White Album would barely exist.
5. Good Night: On each Beatles album, from the Shirelles cover Boys on the first album Please, Please Me through Abbey Road (excluding A Hard Day's Night) drummer Ringo Starr would sing lead on one song. Here, I bypass the first song he ever wrote alone for a Beatles album, Don't Pass Me By (on Side Two of the White Album) for the Side Four album closer written by John and Paul and sung by Ringo. Everyone loves Ringo, but Don't Pass Me By is really, really bad. If I break the Ringo Rule, then The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill would be here.
6. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey: Another great rocker from John, and he gets really esoteric with the lyrics here.
7. Cry, Baby, Cry: A beautiful song from John, this would make a perfect closing track because of the snippet of an unfinished Paul song added to the end with the poignant lyric "Can you take me back/Where I Came From/Can You Take Me Back..."
Obviously, there were some tough cuts, but some could be excluded immediately. Revolution 1 and Revolution 9, Don't Pass Me By, Honey Pie, Wild Honey Pie are the most obvious cuts. What about the other songs?
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: In case you could not tell from the notes above, this was the hardest song to leave out. In fact, the song probably should replace Good Night.
Helter Skelter: The most notorious song on the album, which supposedly influenced Charles Manson during the Tate-LaBianca murders. This song of Paul's, a rocking tune about an English fairground, "still sucks anyway" according to the 4th edition of the New Rolling Stone Album Guide, a book with many execrable opinions and "facts" (Relax, I'll get to my scathing review of this book a few blogs from now.) The song does not suck.
Sexy Sadie: I feel this thinly-veiled Lennon reference to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is the most overrated song on the album, and it is because I just do not dig the lyrics.
Happiness is a Warm Gun: The first minute or so of this Lennon song is one of my favorite moments of the album, but I am just not a huge fan of the chorus.
Dear Prudence: There are many fans of this Lennon song imploring Mia Farrow's sister to come out from her chalet (Ed, the aforementioned Rolling Stone book), but it is not a favorite of mine.
Blackbird: Another favorite of the Rolling Stone book, I still like Mother Nature's Son more, despite some very sensitive lyrics from Paul.
I Will: A little too endearing and syrupy a serving of Paul for me, this song inexplicably made Ed's list.
Long, Long, Long: I felt this song, loved by many (Pete Shotton- John's friend from his Liverpool days, the Rolling Stone book), is the most overrated Harrison song in the Beatles' oeuvre.
Piggies: Another notorious song from the album because of its link to the Manson storyline, this Harrison song has always been charming for me. A worthy song that could easily make the cut on other Beatles albums.
Rocky Raccoon: An utterly ridiculous song of Paul's, delievered with moxie by the cute Beatle. I have never seen or heard this opinion anywhere before, but I wonder, given Paul's excellent performance of this asinine song, how he would do singing bad songs from an Elvis soundtrack? Probably much better than Elvis, since, unlike Paul, Elvis had an internal B.S. detector that recognized the crap just wasn't worth the effort. Paul, as judging by his work on Red Rose Speedway and Wild Life, plus his duet with Michael Jackson on The Girl is Mine, had no such subconscious roadblocks and would have probably delivered tour-de-force performances on The Song of the Shrimp, Yoga Is As Yoga Does, Poison Ivy League, Barefoot Ballad, Do the Clam, and so forth.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Elvis Presley is the King (originally posted 6/6/09)
(At this opportunity, I would like to thank my father and mother for instilling in me a love for Elvis Presley. My father owned only three Elvis albums, Elvis's Golden Records Volumes 1 & 3, and the GI Blues soundtrack, and I would listen to these albums constantly during my middle school years. I would watch Elvis movies on television, and I distinctly remember waiting for Elvis to improbably break into another song during the picture so I could locate the song title on the record sleeve detailing the song lists of many Elvis albums inside the original RCA album cover. Later, when my mom and I would go to the Centereach Mall, she would buy for me the LP for the soundtrack I had seen at the now-defunct Record World (price usually between $3.99-$7.99). 33 CDs, 26 LPs, numerous souvenirs, and two trips to Graceland and to Sun Studios later, Elvis is still the King.)
Here are the five Elvis moments I would have most like to have witnessed:
1) Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 3, 1945.
Elvis, dressed in a cowboy outfit, stands on a chair to reach the microphone and sings Old Shep in a talent-show, coming in second or fifth, depending on which version you read. I would have used whatever technology was available at the time to record this moment.
2) Monday, Sun Studios, Memphis, July 5, 1954.
One of the annoying memories of my days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was during a 300-level class titled Foundations of Education. An African-American student was talking about high school and stated that she was never taught that various tribes from Africa may have arrived on the shores of the Americas before Columbus. Her voice betrayed a mixture of surprise and pride from absorbing this revelation.
Of course, this insight has absolutely zero relevance. For, although Africans and Vikings may have previously visited the Americas, it was Christopher Columbus who provided the impetus for other Europeans to explore the New World, leading to its settlement and ultimately, for better or worse, to the country we have today. Therefore, the Genoese explorer is no less important a figure in American history than Washington and Lincoln, and it is for this reason that we do not celebrate Leif Erickson Day.
And so, too, it is with Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll. For, although there were definitely antecedents in music that hinted at rock-and-roll (Jackie Breston's Rocket 88 is the usual proffered example), it was Elvis Presley who started the revolution, and the revolution started on a hot July day in 1954 at Sun Studios, with Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black fooling around during a break from a rehearsal. After sipping cokes, Elvis took his guitar and, according to Scotty, "started singing this song and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them." The song was a sped-up version of an old Arthur Cruddup blues tune That's All Right and, when Sun Studios head Sam Phillips asked them to do it again, Rock-n-Roll for practical purposes was invented.
3) Monday, RCA Studios, New York, July 2, 1956.
For those who believe that Elvis artistically was no more than a singer who followed orders, this legendary studio session that resulted in Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be) will be a revelation.
The session took place on a hot July day at RCA Studios. Outside the studio, fans were yelling “We want the real Elvis!” in response to Elvis’s tuxedo-clad monstrosity on the Steve Allen Show the night before. Inside the studio were Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, drummer D.J. Fontana, and the Jordanaires, plus RCA executive Steve Sholes. Also in the studio was photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who would snap some iconic photos that day.
First on the agenda was Hound Dog, the Leiber-Stoller song Elvis performed live to raucous reactions after seeing Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform it in Las Vegas. The song metamorphosed from the bump-and-grind in half-time version Elvis gave it on the Milton Berle Show to the faster, tighter arrangement we are familiar with today. Elvis’s band never cooked quite like this before. Scotty fired off some great lead lines, and the rhythm section fell right in. With each take, the song “(grew) tougher and sharper.” Sholes thought several takes were perfect, but Elvis refused to quit until he got the sound he wanted, which was on take 31.
After this, music publisher Freddy Bienstock met Elvis for the first time, with a new song in tow from a blues artist Elvis admired, Otis Blackwell’s Don’t Be Cruel. Elvis took an immediate liking to the song, and began to record it. Scotty delivered one of the most recognizable guitar intros in rock-and-roll history, and the others again fell in. Elvis slapped the back of his guitar to provide additional percussion. After more than two dozen takes, a second masterpiece was waxed that day, its pairing with the first resulted in the greatest double-sided single in rock-and-roll history.
At this point, the air conditioning was off, and an already-hot studio became sweltering. However, Elvis still found time to deliver a stunning performance on the ballad Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be), putting a cap on a remarkable day of recording which fully revealed Elvis’s quest for perfection, a trait that dissipated as the material got weaker after the Army years.
4) Saturday, Sicks Stadium, Seattle, September 1, 1957.
Most recollections of Elvis performing live stem from variety shows of the 50's (Dorsey Bros., Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and the Ed Sullivan Show), from the '68 Comeback, from the That's the Way it Is movie, or from the Aloha From Hawaii spectacle. I would have loved to have seen Elvis at the height of his powers, before his incarceration in the Army, and the concert I would have most wanted to see in person was his show on September 1st, 1957, at Seattle's Sicks Stadium.
Elvis performed concerts in two cities on that day. After leaving by train from Vancouver, B.C., where he had performed the night before (he had also performed earlier the day before in Spokane, WA), Elvis arrived at the King Street Station in Seattle at noon and checked into the Olympic Hotel. Elvis then travelled by limousine 35 miles along Interstate 5 to Tacoma for a 2 PM press conference and concert, and headed back to Seattle at 4:30 PM. He relaxed in his hotel room for a brief spell before his 8 PM show. What happened at the end of that legendary concert is the very essence of rock and roll; the tale seems apocryphal, but really happened. I think.
Tickets for Elvis Presley and "His All-Star Stage Show" on that Sunday night during Labor Day weekend were $1.50, $2.50, and $3.50(!). Over 15,000 delirious fans attended, with 90% of the crowd allegedly being teenage girls. The show began late, sometime around 8:30 PM. The "All-Star Stage Show" included singers, dancers, comedians, jugglers, and marimba players- a reasonable snapshot of the vapidity masquerading as entertainment that made the musical and cultural revolution spearheaded by Elvis so necessary. During the preliminaries, a fan would shout, "There he is!!!," but it was just a mirage.
Finally, after 10 PM, a cordon of policemen surrounded the stage, and Elvis appeared in a dark shirt and slacks, donning his trademark gold lame suit. Girls fainted. When the King approached the microphone, "the tsunami of noise from the audience reached a shrieking crescendo." Attendance included Dennis Lunde and Merrilee Gunst, who as Merrilee Rush had the 1968 hit Angel of the Morning. Elvis opened with Heartbreak Hotel and then "shook, shivered, slumped, slouched, and staggered" through a 45-minute set that included, in order, All Shook Up, I Got a Woman, That's When Your Heartaches Begin, I Was the One, Teddy Bear, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me, Fools Hall of Fame, Blue Suede Shoes, Blueberry Hill (with Elvis on piano), and Mean Woman Blues. Myrna Crafoot, a fan in attendance, jotted this list in order in her diary. Another Seattle fan, James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix, also took notes of the set and later made a color drawing of Elvis accompanied by notes from that concert.
What happened next is recounted in Greil Marcus's 1975 book Mystery Train, from a February 1970 Seattle magazine article titled "Rock!" written by Gordon Bowker, who would go on to co-found Starbucks: "The noise from the 15,000 people was immense. Finally, the crowd grew quiet. 'I alluz like to end muh concerts with the National Anthem,' the King said, into the mike. 'Will y'all please rise?' (Everyone stood). Elvis picked up his guitar, twitched once more, took a breath, and groaned, "YOU AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG!" The crowd was stunned. Then it erupted in a frenzy that dwarfed the one a few minutes earlier. The grandstands swayed back and forth like a huge sea anemone. Not even Elvis could be heard above the roar." A local reporter compared the wailing to 12,000 girls all having their heads shaved at once. It must have been quite a moment. It was this type of hip humor that made Elvis the coolest cat ever.
5) International Hotel, Las Vegas, July 31, 1969.
The first Elvis live performance since 1961 featured in the audience such luminaries as Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey, Pat Boone, Carol Channing, Dick Clark, and Cary Grant. Sam Phillips was also invited, but I would have loved to have been at this concert just to observe Phil Ochs, a huge Elvis fan also in attendance, react to the King. The show, which featured Blue Suede Shoes (the opener), I Got a Woman, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, and Don't Be Cruel, later inspired Phil Ochs to don a gold lame suit and to perform concerts singing Elvis songs under the theory that, for the anti-war movement to succeed, Elvis Presley must become Che Guevara. THAT did not go over too well with the Ochs fan base, although Phil was, of course, correct. The night also inspired Ochs’ brilliant song One-Way Ticket Home, which contains the lyric “Elvis Presley is the King/I was at his crowning/My life just flashed before my eyes/I must be drowning.”
Here are the five Elvis moments I would have most like to have witnessed:
1) Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 3, 1945.
Elvis, dressed in a cowboy outfit, stands on a chair to reach the microphone and sings Old Shep in a talent-show, coming in second or fifth, depending on which version you read. I would have used whatever technology was available at the time to record this moment.
2) Monday, Sun Studios, Memphis, July 5, 1954.
One of the annoying memories of my days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was during a 300-level class titled Foundations of Education. An African-American student was talking about high school and stated that she was never taught that various tribes from Africa may have arrived on the shores of the Americas before Columbus. Her voice betrayed a mixture of surprise and pride from absorbing this revelation.
Of course, this insight has absolutely zero relevance. For, although Africans and Vikings may have previously visited the Americas, it was Christopher Columbus who provided the impetus for other Europeans to explore the New World, leading to its settlement and ultimately, for better or worse, to the country we have today. Therefore, the Genoese explorer is no less important a figure in American history than Washington and Lincoln, and it is for this reason that we do not celebrate Leif Erickson Day.
And so, too, it is with Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll. For, although there were definitely antecedents in music that hinted at rock-and-roll (Jackie Breston's Rocket 88 is the usual proffered example), it was Elvis Presley who started the revolution, and the revolution started on a hot July day in 1954 at Sun Studios, with Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black fooling around during a break from a rehearsal. After sipping cokes, Elvis took his guitar and, according to Scotty, "started singing this song and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them." The song was a sped-up version of an old Arthur Cruddup blues tune That's All Right and, when Sun Studios head Sam Phillips asked them to do it again, Rock-n-Roll for practical purposes was invented.
3) Monday, RCA Studios, New York, July 2, 1956.
For those who believe that Elvis artistically was no more than a singer who followed orders, this legendary studio session that resulted in Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be) will be a revelation.
The session took place on a hot July day at RCA Studios. Outside the studio, fans were yelling “We want the real Elvis!” in response to Elvis’s tuxedo-clad monstrosity on the Steve Allen Show the night before. Inside the studio were Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, drummer D.J. Fontana, and the Jordanaires, plus RCA executive Steve Sholes. Also in the studio was photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who would snap some iconic photos that day.
First on the agenda was Hound Dog, the Leiber-Stoller song Elvis performed live to raucous reactions after seeing Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform it in Las Vegas. The song metamorphosed from the bump-and-grind in half-time version Elvis gave it on the Milton Berle Show to the faster, tighter arrangement we are familiar with today. Elvis’s band never cooked quite like this before. Scotty fired off some great lead lines, and the rhythm section fell right in. With each take, the song “(grew) tougher and sharper.” Sholes thought several takes were perfect, but Elvis refused to quit until he got the sound he wanted, which was on take 31.
After this, music publisher Freddy Bienstock met Elvis for the first time, with a new song in tow from a blues artist Elvis admired, Otis Blackwell’s Don’t Be Cruel. Elvis took an immediate liking to the song, and began to record it. Scotty delivered one of the most recognizable guitar intros in rock-and-roll history, and the others again fell in. Elvis slapped the back of his guitar to provide additional percussion. After more than two dozen takes, a second masterpiece was waxed that day, its pairing with the first resulted in the greatest double-sided single in rock-and-roll history.
At this point, the air conditioning was off, and an already-hot studio became sweltering. However, Elvis still found time to deliver a stunning performance on the ballad Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be), putting a cap on a remarkable day of recording which fully revealed Elvis’s quest for perfection, a trait that dissipated as the material got weaker after the Army years.
4) Saturday, Sicks Stadium, Seattle, September 1, 1957.
Most recollections of Elvis performing live stem from variety shows of the 50's (Dorsey Bros., Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and the Ed Sullivan Show), from the '68 Comeback, from the That's the Way it Is movie, or from the Aloha From Hawaii spectacle. I would have loved to have seen Elvis at the height of his powers, before his incarceration in the Army, and the concert I would have most wanted to see in person was his show on September 1st, 1957, at Seattle's Sicks Stadium.
Elvis performed concerts in two cities on that day. After leaving by train from Vancouver, B.C., where he had performed the night before (he had also performed earlier the day before in Spokane, WA), Elvis arrived at the King Street Station in Seattle at noon and checked into the Olympic Hotel. Elvis then travelled by limousine 35 miles along Interstate 5 to Tacoma for a 2 PM press conference and concert, and headed back to Seattle at 4:30 PM. He relaxed in his hotel room for a brief spell before his 8 PM show. What happened at the end of that legendary concert is the very essence of rock and roll; the tale seems apocryphal, but really happened. I think.
Tickets for Elvis Presley and "His All-Star Stage Show" on that Sunday night during Labor Day weekend were $1.50, $2.50, and $3.50(!). Over 15,000 delirious fans attended, with 90% of the crowd allegedly being teenage girls. The show began late, sometime around 8:30 PM. The "All-Star Stage Show" included singers, dancers, comedians, jugglers, and marimba players- a reasonable snapshot of the vapidity masquerading as entertainment that made the musical and cultural revolution spearheaded by Elvis so necessary. During the preliminaries, a fan would shout, "There he is!!!," but it was just a mirage.
Finally, after 10 PM, a cordon of policemen surrounded the stage, and Elvis appeared in a dark shirt and slacks, donning his trademark gold lame suit. Girls fainted. When the King approached the microphone, "the tsunami of noise from the audience reached a shrieking crescendo." Attendance included Dennis Lunde and Merrilee Gunst, who as Merrilee Rush had the 1968 hit Angel of the Morning. Elvis opened with Heartbreak Hotel and then "shook, shivered, slumped, slouched, and staggered" through a 45-minute set that included, in order, All Shook Up, I Got a Woman, That's When Your Heartaches Begin, I Was the One, Teddy Bear, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me, Fools Hall of Fame, Blue Suede Shoes, Blueberry Hill (with Elvis on piano), and Mean Woman Blues. Myrna Crafoot, a fan in attendance, jotted this list in order in her diary. Another Seattle fan, James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix, also took notes of the set and later made a color drawing of Elvis accompanied by notes from that concert.
What happened next is recounted in Greil Marcus's 1975 book Mystery Train, from a February 1970 Seattle magazine article titled "Rock!" written by Gordon Bowker, who would go on to co-found Starbucks: "The noise from the 15,000 people was immense. Finally, the crowd grew quiet. 'I alluz like to end muh concerts with the National Anthem,' the King said, into the mike. 'Will y'all please rise?' (Everyone stood). Elvis picked up his guitar, twitched once more, took a breath, and groaned, "YOU AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG!" The crowd was stunned. Then it erupted in a frenzy that dwarfed the one a few minutes earlier. The grandstands swayed back and forth like a huge sea anemone. Not even Elvis could be heard above the roar." A local reporter compared the wailing to 12,000 girls all having their heads shaved at once. It must have been quite a moment. It was this type of hip humor that made Elvis the coolest cat ever.
5) International Hotel, Las Vegas, July 31, 1969.
The first Elvis live performance since 1961 featured in the audience such luminaries as Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey, Pat Boone, Carol Channing, Dick Clark, and Cary Grant. Sam Phillips was also invited, but I would have loved to have been at this concert just to observe Phil Ochs, a huge Elvis fan also in attendance, react to the King. The show, which featured Blue Suede Shoes (the opener), I Got a Woman, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, and Don't Be Cruel, later inspired Phil Ochs to don a gold lame suit and to perform concerts singing Elvis songs under the theory that, for the anti-war movement to succeed, Elvis Presley must become Che Guevara. THAT did not go over too well with the Ochs fan base, although Phil was, of course, correct. The night also inspired Ochs’ brilliant song One-Way Ticket Home, which contains the lyric “Elvis Presley is the King/I was at his crowning/My life just flashed before my eyes/I must be drowning.”
The Ideal Paul Revere and the Raiders Best-Of (orig. post 1/16/09)
(This is the logical follow-up to a blog I had posted to My Space on May 8, 2008. In the blog, I had bemoaned the lack of what I felt to be a definitive Paul Revere and the Raiders Best-Of release. Below are the list of 30 songs that I would include.)
A logical Paul Revere and the Raiders 'Best-Of' should not be too difficult to line up. The first songs would include tracks from the fiery, hard-rockin' Northwest territory pre-Columbia days and feature the instrumentals LIKE LONG HAIR, their first trip to the Top 40 (#38, 1961), and THE ORBIT, the wonderful B-side to the Raiders' first single. Of course, the near-hit LOUIE-LOUIE (the early version, not the Here They Come! LP version) must be included, plus the earlier version of LOUIE, GO HOME, with Paul's piano intro and Mark's blistering vocals, and the cover OVER YOU. Finally, the wild CRISCO PARTY/WALKING THE DOG (not released until the 1990's), whose spoken introduction needs to be heard to be believed, needs to be on.
The Fang-Drake-Smitty-Harpo Where the Action Is years (1965-67), which had most of the hits, would comprise the bulk of the collection. Obviously, the charting hits STEPPIN' OUT (#46, 1965), JUST LIKE ME (#11, 1966), KICKS (#4, 1966), HUNGRY (#6, 1966), THE GREAT AIRPLANE STRIKE (#20, 1966- the extended version featured on the Essential Ride 1963-67 compilation would be preferred here), GOOD THING (#4, 1967), UPS AND DOWNS (#22, 1967), and HIM OR ME, WHAT'S IT GONNA BE? (#5, 1967) would be featured. They would be joined by such strong album tracks as SOMETIMES (from Here They Come!), NEW ORLEANS (to get the flavor of the 1965 Just Like Us LP), and three songs from their best LP, Midnight Ride (1966): BALLAD OF A USELESS MAN (a Drake-penned song), GET IT ON (the strongest of the Fang-penned songs), and Mark's sax instrumental MELODY FOR AN UNKNOWN GIRL.
The Freddy-Joe Jr-Keith-Charlie era (1967-1972) would include the charting singles I HAD A DREAM (#17, 1967), TOO MUCH TALK (#19, 1968), YOU SHOULDN'T TAKE IT SO HARD (#27, 1968), MR SUN, MR MOON (#18, 1968), and LET ME (#20, 1969). Songs such as I DON'T WANT NOBODY from the Goin' to Memphis project (1968) and any track (say, RAIN, SLEET, OR SNOW) from the off-the-wall A Christmas Past...and Present (1967) can give listeners a flavor of the hipness of the band. From 1970's Collage would come the hard-rocking JUST SEVENTEEN (#82, 1970).
And, finally, the #1 hit INDIAN RESERVATION (1971) , BIRDS OF A FEATHER (#23, 1971), and TOBACCO ROAD, the best version ever done of the John D. Loudermilk song, would round it all up.
A logical Paul Revere and the Raiders 'Best-Of' should not be too difficult to line up. The first songs would include tracks from the fiery, hard-rockin' Northwest territory pre-Columbia days and feature the instrumentals LIKE LONG HAIR, their first trip to the Top 40 (#38, 1961), and THE ORBIT, the wonderful B-side to the Raiders' first single. Of course, the near-hit LOUIE-LOUIE (the early version, not the Here They Come! LP version) must be included, plus the earlier version of LOUIE, GO HOME, with Paul's piano intro and Mark's blistering vocals, and the cover OVER YOU. Finally, the wild CRISCO PARTY/WALKING THE DOG (not released until the 1990's), whose spoken introduction needs to be heard to be believed, needs to be on.
The Fang-Drake-Smitty-Harpo Where the Action Is years (1965-67), which had most of the hits, would comprise the bulk of the collection. Obviously, the charting hits STEPPIN' OUT (#46, 1965), JUST LIKE ME (#11, 1966), KICKS (#4, 1966), HUNGRY (#6, 1966), THE GREAT AIRPLANE STRIKE (#20, 1966- the extended version featured on the Essential Ride 1963-67 compilation would be preferred here), GOOD THING (#4, 1967), UPS AND DOWNS (#22, 1967), and HIM OR ME, WHAT'S IT GONNA BE? (#5, 1967) would be featured. They would be joined by such strong album tracks as SOMETIMES (from Here They Come!), NEW ORLEANS (to get the flavor of the 1965 Just Like Us LP), and three songs from their best LP, Midnight Ride (1966): BALLAD OF A USELESS MAN (a Drake-penned song), GET IT ON (the strongest of the Fang-penned songs), and Mark's sax instrumental MELODY FOR AN UNKNOWN GIRL.
The Freddy-Joe Jr-Keith-Charlie era (1967-1972) would include the charting singles I HAD A DREAM (#17, 1967), TOO MUCH TALK (#19, 1968), YOU SHOULDN'T TAKE IT SO HARD (#27, 1968), MR SUN, MR MOON (#18, 1968), and LET ME (#20, 1969). Songs such as I DON'T WANT NOBODY from the Goin' to Memphis project (1968) and any track (say, RAIN, SLEET, OR SNOW) from the off-the-wall A Christmas Past...and Present (1967) can give listeners a flavor of the hipness of the band. From 1970's Collage would come the hard-rocking JUST SEVENTEEN (#82, 1970).
And, finally, the #1 hit INDIAN RESERVATION (1971) , BIRDS OF A FEATHER (#23, 1971), and TOBACCO ROAD, the best version ever done of the John D. Loudermilk song, would round it all up.
'65 Love Affair (originally posted 8/10/08)
While walking to my car after leaving work this past Friday, the horribly annoying song '65 Love Affair creeped into my head, which is what I assume happens to most Americans as they start their weekends, and I came to the realization that songs with a past year in its title usually chomp the big one. Others immediately sprang to mind (Bryan Adams's Summer of '69 and the Four Seasons' (December 1963) Oh ,What a Night- only the Young Rascals' fine Nineteen Fifty Six is an exception, but, then again, the Young Rascals were an exception to a lot of rules); funnily enough, songs with a future year in their titles usually rock, such as Paul McCartney's Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, Prince's 1999, and, as a stretch, Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra (from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
I really hate Paul Davis's '65 Love Affair, where the singer wistfully recalls a fleeting love affair. From the Sha-Na-Na meets eighties' drum machine production to the annoying chorus "do-wop-diddy, wop-diddy, wop-doo," which attempts to evoke nostalgic emotion in ways the naive lyrics do not, enough parts are in place to make one have an innate desire to just start shooting. What really gets to me, however, is the line "rock and roll was simple and clear." From my vantage point as a student of rock-and-roll history, 1965 was precisely the point in rock history where lyrics started getting more complicated. Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone reached 2 on the charts, the Byrds took Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn !to 1, the Beatles took Help!, We Can Work it Out/Day Tripper, and Ticket to Ride to the top of the charts and released Rubber Soul, the Stones released Satisfaction and Get Off Of My Cloud, and I haven't even brought up Motown and the Beach Boys yet. Lyrics would even get more complex in 1966.
(For a critique of the air-headed awfulness of Bryan Adams's Summer of '69, please read Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell's 1991 masterpiece The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time. Do I really need to break down why the Four Seasons' song is so wretched?)
I really hate Paul Davis's '65 Love Affair, where the singer wistfully recalls a fleeting love affair. From the Sha-Na-Na meets eighties' drum machine production to the annoying chorus "do-wop-diddy, wop-diddy, wop-doo," which attempts to evoke nostalgic emotion in ways the naive lyrics do not, enough parts are in place to make one have an innate desire to just start shooting. What really gets to me, however, is the line "rock and roll was simple and clear." From my vantage point as a student of rock-and-roll history, 1965 was precisely the point in rock history where lyrics started getting more complicated. Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone reached 2 on the charts, the Byrds took Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn !to 1, the Beatles took Help!, We Can Work it Out/Day Tripper, and Ticket to Ride to the top of the charts and released Rubber Soul, the Stones released Satisfaction and Get Off Of My Cloud, and I haven't even brought up Motown and the Beach Boys yet. Lyrics would even get more complex in 1966.
(For a critique of the air-headed awfulness of Bryan Adams's Summer of '69, please read Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell's 1991 masterpiece The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time. Do I really need to break down why the Four Seasons' song is so wretched?)
The Essential Ride '63-'67 (originally posted 5/6/08)
One of the frustrating things as a sixties' music fan is to see record labels continually botch single-disc Greatest Hits releases for acts whose oeuvre is ideal for such a concept. The collections actually released usually include either only the most obvious choices, or a few of the most obvious hits coupled with album filler selected as if by random. As a great singles band who released cohesive but never great LPs, Paul Revere and the Raiders would be ideally suited for representation by a well-balanced, comprehensive Greatest Hits release that would satisfy the hardcore fan and intrigue the uninitiated; however, this Raiders fan is still waiting for that collection.
The first attempt, Paul Revere and the Raiders' Greatest Hits (1967), featured only 11 tracks and followed a pattern record companies followed at the time, which was to release a Greatest Hits package approximately 3 years after the group first gained national prominence. The Rascals, the Byrds, the Monkees, the Kinks- even the Beatles (in England), Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys did not escape this fate. The Raiders release included the hits (Louie Louie, Steppin' Out [46, 1965], Just Like Me [11, 1966], Kicks [4, 1966], Hungry [6, 1966] , Good Thing [4, 1967] , the Great Airplane Strike [20, 1966] ), which are as good as the absolute best of mid-60's rock, plus two strong album tracks, a self-penned tribute song titled Legend of Paul Revere, and the final single (Ups and Downs [22, 1967] ) featuring the Where the Action Is quintet intact. It's a good collection, but too skimpy to be comprehensive.
The Raiders Greatest Hits, Vol 2 (1970) came next, just before 1971's Indian Reservation and includes two great songs (Him or Me [What's It Gonna Be] [5, 1967], Let Me [20, 1969]), plus several decent songs that don't match the drive and inspiration of the earlier stuff. It serves as a companion piece to the first release, but nothing more.
After the release of the 2-LP All-Time Greatest Hits (1972), which inexplicably did not include 1971's monster hit Indian Reservation (Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian), their only Number One, nor any non-single album tracks (although it did include Do Unto Others, the obscure B-side to Peace of Mind), no new releases followed besides cheap compilations from fly-by-night record labels until 1990's The Legend of Paul Revere, a 2-CD set that included all the Columbia singles (even post-Indian Reservation songs), plus obscure instrumentals, commercial jingles, and pre-Columbia singles released during their early Northwest years (an era of raucous Raiders concerts). It's a fine compilation with good liner notes, but its problem is that is more of a song gathering for completists than a represenation of the Raiders' body of work. A grave omission: the collection does not include the Orbit, a rocking instrumental that served as the b-side to their first single, Beatnik Sticks. Also, no non-single album tracks were included.
Which brings us to The Essential Ride '63-'67, released in 1995. This CD-release attempts to restore the Raiders to their rightful place in musical history. On the surface, the attempt nearly succeeds. The excellent liner notes include contributions from lead singer Mark Lindsay, bassist Phil Volk, drummer Mike Smith, lead guitarist Drake Levin, and Levin replacement Jim Valley, who had a great quote about being hired by the Raiders ("I was 23 and married when I was hired, and I was 21 and single the next day."), has all the hits up to the time Volk, Valley, Smith, and Levin left the group, and a treat or two for the hardcore Raiders fan. There's Over You, one of the best pre-Columbia singles, the wild, almost x-rated medley Crisco Party/Walking the Dog, a never-before released song left off the first Columbia LP Here They Come! for being far too racy for release back then, the longer version of Steppin' Out (with a longer rap from Mark before the fade), and an essential, extended version of the Great Airplane Strike never before released. The sound quality is excellent.
However, there are flaws. The version of Hungry is not the great version of the Mann-Weil rocker released as a single, but a demo where Lindsay slips in an f-bomb. This would be interesting as a bonus track on a re-release of an album, but unpardonable for a Greatest Hits release, no matter how rebellious you are trying to depict a band
Even worse are the album tracks included. Presenting obscure album tracks on this type of collection can enhance your case for the greatness of a band; however, if that was the intention, why did this CD include such weak tracks? Boyce-Hart's (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone pales in comparison to the Monkees' release. Take a Look at Yourself is another weak selection from the Raiders' third LP, Midnight Ride- There She Goes, Melody For an Unknown Girl, Volk's Get It On, and Smith's There's Always Tomorrow were all far more worthy choices from that album. The choices from the 4th LP, Spirit Of '67, are even worse. Louise is sprightly, but Volk's In My Community and Why, Why, Why (Is It So Hard?) are weak choices. A "bonus" track, the unreleased "(You're a) Bad Girl," is flaccid as well. Smith's Our Candidate was much more interesting, and could have been included. Even worse are the exclusion of album tracks from the first two releases, Here They Come! and Just Like Us, the latter album widely considered to be one of the first garage rock albums.
A future blog will feature my ideal Raiders Greatest Hits album.
The first attempt, Paul Revere and the Raiders' Greatest Hits (1967), featured only 11 tracks and followed a pattern record companies followed at the time, which was to release a Greatest Hits package approximately 3 years after the group first gained national prominence. The Rascals, the Byrds, the Monkees, the Kinks- even the Beatles (in England), Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys did not escape this fate. The Raiders release included the hits (Louie Louie, Steppin' Out [46, 1965], Just Like Me [11, 1966], Kicks [4, 1966], Hungry [6, 1966] , Good Thing [4, 1967] , the Great Airplane Strike [20, 1966] ), which are as good as the absolute best of mid-60's rock, plus two strong album tracks, a self-penned tribute song titled Legend of Paul Revere, and the final single (Ups and Downs [22, 1967] ) featuring the Where the Action Is quintet intact. It's a good collection, but too skimpy to be comprehensive.
The Raiders Greatest Hits, Vol 2 (1970) came next, just before 1971's Indian Reservation and includes two great songs (Him or Me [What's It Gonna Be] [5, 1967], Let Me [20, 1969]), plus several decent songs that don't match the drive and inspiration of the earlier stuff. It serves as a companion piece to the first release, but nothing more.
After the release of the 2-LP All-Time Greatest Hits (1972), which inexplicably did not include 1971's monster hit Indian Reservation (Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian), their only Number One, nor any non-single album tracks (although it did include Do Unto Others, the obscure B-side to Peace of Mind), no new releases followed besides cheap compilations from fly-by-night record labels until 1990's The Legend of Paul Revere, a 2-CD set that included all the Columbia singles (even post-Indian Reservation songs), plus obscure instrumentals, commercial jingles, and pre-Columbia singles released during their early Northwest years (an era of raucous Raiders concerts). It's a fine compilation with good liner notes, but its problem is that is more of a song gathering for completists than a represenation of the Raiders' body of work. A grave omission: the collection does not include the Orbit, a rocking instrumental that served as the b-side to their first single, Beatnik Sticks. Also, no non-single album tracks were included.
Which brings us to The Essential Ride '63-'67, released in 1995. This CD-release attempts to restore the Raiders to their rightful place in musical history. On the surface, the attempt nearly succeeds. The excellent liner notes include contributions from lead singer Mark Lindsay, bassist Phil Volk, drummer Mike Smith, lead guitarist Drake Levin, and Levin replacement Jim Valley, who had a great quote about being hired by the Raiders ("I was 23 and married when I was hired, and I was 21 and single the next day."), has all the hits up to the time Volk, Valley, Smith, and Levin left the group, and a treat or two for the hardcore Raiders fan. There's Over You, one of the best pre-Columbia singles, the wild, almost x-rated medley Crisco Party/Walking the Dog, a never-before released song left off the first Columbia LP Here They Come! for being far too racy for release back then, the longer version of Steppin' Out (with a longer rap from Mark before the fade), and an essential, extended version of the Great Airplane Strike never before released. The sound quality is excellent.
However, there are flaws. The version of Hungry is not the great version of the Mann-Weil rocker released as a single, but a demo where Lindsay slips in an f-bomb. This would be interesting as a bonus track on a re-release of an album, but unpardonable for a Greatest Hits release, no matter how rebellious you are trying to depict a band
A future blog will feature my ideal Raiders Greatest Hits album.
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