I will not be publishing a fresh post tomorrow.  My hot water heater is acting up and today I have to deal with that.  I will be back on Friday with a brand new post.  Tuesday is request day and the feature on 6 Aug, 2013 is going to be about JJ Cale who passed away the other day at the age of 74.

All Mixed Up by The Cars

All Mixed Up live 1978
Moving Stereo segueing into All Mixed Up from the Cars self titled debut album

The Cars 1978

       Lots of great bands have called the Boston area home.  Of course at the top of the heap is Aerosmith.  But the area seem's to historically spawn great artists like The Standells, who made the "River Charles" famous, Bela Fleck, Bell Biv Devoe, The Dropkick Murphy's, Extreme, Godsmack, Boston, Billy Squier, Susan Tedeschi, The J Giels Band, and of course The Cars.

Perhaps the most recognizable
cover shot ever

       In 1977 the Cars were jamming in the Boston night clubs and sending out recordings of themselves to the local radio stations.  The song Just What I needed broke the news of this great new band to eastern New England and suddenly every show was sold out and there was a loud clamor for more.  We didn't have to wait long.  In 1978 the band released their debut album self titled The Cars.  The cover featured a gorgeous girl with over ripe lips laughing away behind a translucent steering wheel, one arm thrown across her forehead. The cover shot is attention grabbing and soon became one of the most recognizable pictures in the history of rock and roll.

Ric Ocasek an eccentric genius

     The music was incredible.  The band came along at the start of the New Wave era and was one of it's defining acts.  They combined great guitar work with progressive keyboards and impressionist lyrics driven along with a practically mechanized putt-putt beat provided by under-rated drummer David Robinson.  Greg Hawkes played the keyboards and sax, with smart guitar leads from the left handed and talented Elliot Easton.  Ben Orr played the Bass and provided most of the lead vocals.  But the leader of the band and the primary songwriter was a tall skinny dude with a mullet and dark sunglasses named Ric Ocasek.  Personally I consider the guy a genius.

I love that dirty water...

      The album was a true trend setter and one of the strongest debut's ever for any band,.  It eventually went on to become a 6x platinum recording.  The first single Just What I Needed left Boston and quickly conquered the rock and roll world.   Very soon the Cars followed up with My Best Friends Girl and then Let The Good Times Roll.  Eventually every track on the record could be heard on the radio dominating 1978.  They followed this success with another smash record called Candy-O which had a much different vibe.  The first single off that one was Lets Go and it sailed into the top end of the charts starting Candy-O's drive to becoming a 4x platinum album.

Candy-O 4x Platinum album

      The last track of The Cars debut album was a very strong song called All Mixed Up.  The song was preceded by a charting single called Moving In Stereo which segued very smoothly into All Mixed Up.  Those two songs, but especially All Mixed up, pointed the way forward for the band. It featured much stronger harmonies, a more varied rhythm, a great transition bridge leading to a vocally stellar chorus.  The song has an air of mystery about it reminiscent of the Zombies She's Not There with the band telling us they would be back with even better music with the repeated ending lyric "If you leave it to me everything will be alright".
       The Cars debut album is on my list of must have albums and All Mixed Up is one of the best songs on and album full of best songs from top to bottom.  Give it a listen...

The Cars self titled debut album for sale at amazon.com

Sossity You're A Woman by Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull circa 1700

       According to Rolling Stone Magazine Jethro Tull was *"Named for no apparent reason after an 18th-century British agronomist who invented the machine drill for sowing seed".  They released their first album in 1968 called This Was Jethro Tull.  My favorite song off that album is called A Song For Jeffrey.  It's a blues/jazz number with Ian Anderson singing in a weird throaty voice and it shows off the talents of the band while promising a strong future for it's fans to look forward too.

Machine drill for sowing
wheat seed

     That future began arriving the following year when Tull released a very strong album called Stand Up.  Part of what made Stand Up different was the replacement of guitar player Mick Abrahams by Martin Barre.  This reflected Anderson's growing control of the band as well as his maturity as a songwriter and composer.  The album featured a more classical/celtic fusion influence signalling Tull's entrance into the burgeoning Progressive Rock movement.  While there still was a strong blues/jazz influence the most popular song from that album is the instrumental Bouree which is Tull's take on Johann Sebastian Bach's 18th century composition. Proving their credibility as superlative musicians as well as informing their fans of their overall musical direction.

Jethro Tull, an eccentric & extremely talented
70's era prog-rock band

     Next came 1970's Benefit album which completed Tull's conversion from a blues/jazz band to a classical progrock band with Celtic influence.  In 1970 it was a very original sound, that despite others working within the template has never quite rocked as hard as Tull.  A fine example of this is Loreena McKinnitt's 1997 spectacular The Mummers Dance.  The Tull influence is obvious and she adds in an interesting Eric Bazalian style (Hooters) hook.
      The song I'm featuring today is called Sossity You're A Woman and it came to me as a request from the Salem Massachusetts singer/songwriter Ronnie Black Hat Deschenes who was one of my early guitar teachers and is still a lifelong friend.  
       The song tells the story of a woman who can't quite keep her promises to herself to become the woman she wants to be.  While the man in her life understands this he knows she'll never change and though he stays he knows he will always be let down.  Sossity (alternately pronounced sauce-i-tee and then society) is, besides a melancholy love story, a metaphor for modern society.  When Anderson wrote the song in 1970 he obviously believed the possibility that society had within it the potential to fulfill it's promise to itself.  That reflects both Anderson's age, he was an idealistic 23 at the time, and his growing wisdom as an observer of man. As the song predicts, society, in general, never quite lives up to her promise.  We stay, like Anderson's protagonist, because it is our home and we still have hope yet we remain eternally dissappointed.  

Ian Anderson. flute,
tights, & medieval cod piece

       The song, of course, features Ian Anderson's unique and intriguing vocal style and flute over Martin Barre's complex & clean classical guitar.  Also under the singing is a wonderful organ accompaniment provided by either Glenn Cornick or John Evan.  Cornick was released from the band after Benefit and went on to join Bob Welch's band (Sentimental Love Affair).  Evan participated in the recording of Benefit and stayed with Tull for the next decade.  The familiar sounding organ is similar to the sound Boston successfully utilized a few years later on their rock classic self titled debut album.  
        I especially like the last minute of Sossity.  At the end of the lyric there is a half rest followed by a very strong flute/organ/guitar driven chorus with Anderson plaintively lamenting repeatedly Sossity, you're a woman.  Barre's polished classical guitar dramatically ends the song.
      The placement of this song last on the album probably means the band believed it was very strong song.  Sossity's influence is felt on the Aqualung album in songs like Mother Goose.  Despite Aqualung's sales success being driven by heavy rock and roll classics like Hymn 43, Aqualung, and Locomotive Breath the album is actually more acoustic and classically focused than anything Tull had offered before.  Driving that success is the influence of songs like Sossity.  Despite it's lack of radio play and the intervening years the song still sounds fresh today.  Pulled from the deepest recesses of the steamer trunk please enjoy Sossity You're A Woman

amazon.com Benefit byJethro Tull

I'd like to thank my most excellent friend Ronnie Blackhat Deschenes for the request and his freindship.

Jay

* http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/jethro-tull#ixzz2aLfbGYDI 

       

From Detroit the fabulous Spinners with their classic Rubberband Man 3:34

The Spinners Rubberband Man album version 7:15
     "So much rhythm, grace, & debonair for one man?  Lord!!!"

       In 1963 a group of young singers from Detroit calling themselves The Spinners joined the Motown label.  They came to the attention of Motown's Berry Gordy through Henry Faqua.  Faqua was Gordy's Brother-in-Law as well as a member of the Spinners and an executive at Tri-Phi records.  Motown bought out Tri-Phi and the Spinners came with the package as did Marvin Gaye.  At Motown The Spinners were considered a good, not great, singing group and they had limited commercial success.  Eventually they were relegated to the backwaters of Motown and the paradoxically named V.I.P. label.
      In 1972 The Spinners Motown contract was expiring.  Aretha Franklin, a fan of the group, suggested they join her at Atlantic Records.  They made the move but in the process lost lead singer GC Cameron who had signed a separate contract with Motown and could not make the jump.  He was replaced by his cousin Phillipe Wynne.  Wynne already at Atlantic had a strong reputation in the music industry from his time spent singing in Bootsy Collins band and then later with James Brown.  They hooked up with Philadelphia record producer & songwriter Thom Bell and they now had in place the makings of a chart topping super-group.
      From 1973 to 1978 The Spinners release 5 Gold records which eventually garnered them a nomination to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  They released 15 singles in a row that charted  top 10 on the R&B charts including 6 #1 hits.  They attained major crossover success in 1974 when they hit #1 in the country with the song Then Came You with Dionne Warwick.  This was followed in 1975 with the song Games People Play with Barbara Ingram.  Producer Thom Bell reported later that Ms. Ingram didn't sing on that record and the female voice was actually provided by group member Henry Fambrough sped up to emulate a female voice.  Ingram and then later Wynne disputed that claim.  Ingram is credited in most places and there is no definitive proof that contradicts it.  The controversy has never been fully resolved and, to my knowledge, Fambrough's never commented one way or the other but it is interesting to note that he is a baritone.  Personally I believe Barbara Ingram sang the part and Bell's comment was intended as a joke or for publicity.
      In 1976 the Spinners hit it big again, reaching #2 on the national charts, with Rubberband Man.  The song is about as much fun as you can have with music and voices.  It features a witty lyric describing a short fat musician that comically plays a rubber band stretched between his bare feet.  Wynne provides catchy commentary during each bridge including the rhythm, grace, and debonair quote at the top of the post. The song dares you to not tap your feet or dance.  Each time I hear it I smile.  The song has remained in the national psyche resurfacing every few years in movies, on TV, as well as being covered whole or through sampling by other music artists.  It was used in the movie Stripes in the early 80's as well as the Muppet Show.  It showed back up again each time baseball pitcher Carlos Marmol entered the game at Wrigley Field for the Cubs.  Then it famously was featured in the very funny Office Max Commercial  linked here.
      Fifty two years later The Spinners are still a touring act albeit with only one original member, Henry Fambrough, still performing.  Most of the early members of the band have passed away but the music they made lives on.  They were a great vocal group who hit their stride and left an indelible impression on the music world.  Please take a moment to enjoy Rubberband Man one of the most fun songs to ever come out of the record industry.

The Detroit Spinners Essentials at amazon





     

Sunday Morning.

Like ZZ Top says You've Got To Mellow Down Easy Babe...

Please enjoy Don't Change by INXS


I will be back tomorrow with all new entry's.  Thank you for reading my stuff!!!

Jay

       Welcome Back to Saturday Night Live at the Off The Charts Blog Music Hall.  Tonight on stage at Wembley Stadium the featured artist is the Australian super group INXS playing their international mega hit New Sensation.  I especially like this video because the band sounds fantastic but almost as important is the energy of the crowd.  During this spot on performance the energy level is so high that the audience dances and thunderously applauds throughout the performance.  The floor at Wembley, as revealed by the high end camera's, turns into the worlds biggest mosh pit.  I would have loved to have been there!!!

INXS live at Wembley New Sensation 
     
 I intend to do an expanded profile of INXS at a later date but for now please enjoy this stellar live performance by one of Australia's most successful exports...

INXS Live At Wembley 1991 at amazon.com

Alice Cooper: Give The Kid a Break

       By 1976 Alice Cooper was one of the most successful rock stars in the world.  His stage show theatrics had become the stuff of legend followed by lots of innuendo and genuine misinformation.  For example there is a wonderful story that Alice bit the head off of a chicken and drank it's blood. As strange and disturbing as that is the real story is more mundane, but equally bad for the chicken in question.     
       While the band was performing someone in the audience threw a chicken up on stage.  Why someone would bring a chicken to a rock concert or how they managed to get it in (I mean did they buy a ticket for it?) is still kind of a mystery.  Once the chicken arrived on the stage Alice threw it back into the audience where, to his horror, they proceeded to tear it to shreds.  Imagine what that scene must have looked like?  The next day the headlines said Cooper had bit off the birds head and drank it's blood.  In this case the strange and negative publicity only fueled ticket and record sales.
     Another great story regarding Alice and his penchant for macabre stage props is the story about the Boa Constrictor.  Boa's are a relatively harmless snake that rarely attack humans.  They only eat about once a month and they really prefer live rodents.  Alice added the Boa to the show because he realized how, in general, people have a strong fear of snakes. A snake draped across his shoulders and wrapped around his arm made an amazing theatrical prop that evoked emotion in the audience and garnered world wide headlines.
     One night he left the snake locked in a hotel bathroom and it apparently went down the toilet and into the piping.  He called the manager who brought in crews to tear the plumbing apart to try and locate the lost Boa.  Imagine being a member of that plumbing crew?  They were unable, or unwilling, to rescue the snake.  Of course it did show back up about 2 weeks later when it came out of the toilet in Charlie Prides bathroom.  Wish I could have been there to see that!!!

Alice Cooper inspired everyone with a theatrical flair

      Alice Cooper and his band were considered a "metal band" and were the forerunners of many great theatrical rock and roll bands that followed.  I never considered Cooper a true  metal artist because his albums were full of songs that covered the musical spectrum from pretty love songs to strange Gothic offerings like Sick Things and I Love The Dead.  But many of his songs were straight forward rock and roll, some with extra loud crunchy guitars.  Throughout the 70's he had a string of hits like I'm Eighteen, Schools Out, Under My Wheel, Billion Dollar Babies, No More Mr. Nice Guy, & Hello Hooray, & Elected.

I highly recommend Alice Coopers Greatest Hits Album

      I've chosen the song Give The Kid a Break from the Alice Cooper Goes to Hell album.  Goes to Hell was a continuation of the Welcome to My Nightmare concept album.  Hell was made at a time when Cooper (whose real name is actually Vincent Furnier) was succumbing to a serious alcohol problem.  In fact the problem was so intense that he was forced to cancel the Hell tour and check into rehab.  Gratefully he survived the experience and went on to create more great music.  The cancellation of the tour and the time it took for his recovery destined the album to become a forgotten classic.  It's really to bad because the album is very strong with many great songs that might have elevated Cooper even fruther if he had been able to properly support it.  I especially like Go To Hell, I'm The Coolest, Guilty, Give The Kid a Break (featured here), & I'm Always Chasing Rainbows.

Purchase: Alice Cooper Goes To Hell






     

My Own Worst Enemy by Lit

Lit

      By 1999 the grunge era was pretty much over.  The rebellious flannel wearing musical idealists were now in their late 20's and early 30's.  Generally speaking as people mature their focus changes from themselves to career, family, and  stability.  They take time to assess who they are, where they came from, and where they're going.  But this isn't the only reason grunge, as a pure art form, was dying, so were many of it's most prominent and successful performers.  Layne Staley (Alice In Chains), Bradley Nowell (Sublime), Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon), and of course Kurt Cobain (Nirvanna) all passed away at very young ages.  While the fans were shocked and saddened these events led their surviving music industry associates as well as the next generation of musicians to re-assess who they are and what they wanted their future to look like.

Kurt Cobain's life & death influenced
the next generation of musicians

       Dave Grohl, Nirvanna's former drummer, knew he wanted to still make music as did bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers who had lost Hillel Slovak in 1988.  These bands, as well as many others, picked up the pieces, tried to set aside the lifestyle that claimed these young lives, and went on to chase their goal of making music.
       As the grunge era waned the influence it created on the next generation was just starting to bear fruit.  Bands like Matchbox 20, the Foo Fighters, 3 Doors Down, Everclear, & Better Than Ezra started moving grunge forward from it's roots into the future as it became the main stream of rock and roll.
       In 1999 a band calling itself Lit emerged from East LA County and spent 3 months at the top of the charts with their song My Own Worst Enemy.  The song tells the story about a guy who parties and gets so "lit" that he suffers a blackout.  During his black out he manages to tell off his girl friend, drive his car onto the front lawn, break into his own house through a window, and pass out with his clothes on.  The next day he awakens hungover and well aware that he is his own worst enemy but doesn't quite understand why he feels this overwhelming need to keep kicking himself.

Lit performs on Pam Anderson's ass

        Introspection has always been a subject that rock artists have explored.  Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys gave us In My Room and Until I Die, Everclear's Father Of Mine told the story about a guy who will always be lame and weird inside because of the abuse he suffered as a kid.  Sting famously, and quite pretentiously, declared himself the King of Pain.  Off Spring covered this ground in 1994 with their big hit Self Esteem and that is the song most closely related to My Own Worst Enemy.  Many of these artists were telling their audiences that living is what we are supposed to do.  Confronting your inner demons and over coming your past is a necessary albeit painful and sometimes embarrassing part of the process of growing up.
       While Lit might not have broken any new ground with their subject matter they did still manage to present the world with a song with a great guitar hook, strong rhythm, and humorous lyrics.  Anybody that's ever had next day regrets after partying too hard the night before could easily identify with the singer's plight.  Also, like all really great rock and roll the song it's just plain fun.  Please check out Lit performing My Own Worst Enemy.

Lit My Own Worst Enemy (explicit version) at amazon.com
     
 


   

Brewer & Shipley: One Toke Over The Line

       Rock and Roll has been the accompanying sound track of our lives for the last 60 years.  It communicates complex ideas into 3 minute soundbites that make us think, & feel.  Oftentimes it challenges our intellect by asking us to question our assumptions and then dares us to move forward.  But really, when everything else is stripped away, it's just plain fun.
      If you remember the first time you heard rock and roll leaping out of a scratchy am radio you probably recall feelings of excitement and joy.  Even if you were to young to understand what the lyrics meant the music instantly changed your emotional state.  I felt it the first time I heard Elvis singing Hound Dog.  It happened again and again with songs like I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Fun, Fun, Fun, Dance To The Music, I Love Rock & Roll, & Start Me Up to name but a few.  

     In 1970 at the tender age of eight I heard a song about smoking marijuana wrapped up in a catchy folk/rock tune accompanied by harmonies usually only displayed by the Kingston Trio or their contemporaries.  The song is called One Toke Over The Line by the mid-western duo Brewer & Shipley.  The song was a one hitter for the band but it caught the attention of the entire Woodstock generation, tVice President Spiro T. Agnew, as well as Lawrence Welk.  

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
"Brewer and Shipley are subversive
to American Youth..."

     The word "toke" is defined by Miriam-Webster as  "slang: a puff on a marijuana cigarette or pipe".  The 14-40 crowd knew what it meant as did the Vice President because he called Brewer and Shipley "Subversive to American youth...".  Of course the over 40 evangelical crowd latched onto the references to "sweet Jesus" and "Awaiting for the train that goes home, sweet Mary"  and assumed it was a gospel song.  In fact on the very day that Agnew threw down his moral gauntlet  Lawrence Welk was introducing the song as proof positive that American youth embraced the Christian gospel.   That story, as funny and strange as it seems, is absolutely true and here's Dick Dale & Gail Farrell on the Lawrance Welk Show singing One Toke* .

Lawrence Welk 

       In fact Lawrence Welk wasn't wrong when he called the song a spiritual.  The lyrics are open to interpretation but I came to believe that it was either about making peace with God before your impending death, or reaching the decision to make positive changes in our life.  I tend to believe the second interpretation because in the second verse they talk about making love and how it opened their eyes.  It's pretty obvious that they want to repeat that experience and people waiting for death generally don't have sex & getting high on their minds.  But I didn't really come to that conclusion until I was an adult and I still tend to listen to the song with my little boy ears.
       One Toke Over the Line is a mid-speed country shuffle based on a bluegrass chord progression.  It's the kind of backup music Hank Williams Sr. would have adored.  The song features a harmonized guitar duo and bass.  The leads are played on a peddle steel guitar and it also runs under the entire song.  It's been long rumored that steel guitar was played by Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame, but that's been hard to confirm.  Garcia is credited with playing steel guitar on the Tarkio Road album where One Toke debuted but it's a bit unclear which songs he contributed to.  No matter who played what, the song is pure Brewer and Shipley and their harmonies are spot on and quite beautiful.  
        Please take a moment and listen to One Toke Over The Line.  It's a fun, happy sounding song that bops along with catchy music, lyrics and gorgeous harmonies. 

Get The Best Of Brewer & Shipley at amazon.com

*Brewer and Shipley  telling the story of Agnew & Welk



      

A must hear classic:
 Ray Charles What I'd Say

      Soul music has been with us since the first slaves raised their voices to heaven.  Despite the horror of their daily lives, for a few brief moments on Sunday morning, they would collectively raise their voices to try and catch God's attention by singing the brightest most joyful sounds they could create. If you've ever sat in a black church and listened closely to the choir you can still hear the reverberations of their ancestors singing and clapping as they released their misery to a God they fervently prayed was listening. 

Ray Charles an American original

       While slavery is long behind us the echoes of the antebellum era are still ringing within our collective psyche.  For a hundred years after the Civil War the slaves and each successive generation were stung by the elusive promise of economic and political freedom.  The music first created in those ramshackle road side Churches, first by the slaves and then by their decedents, touched the tender heart of anyone, regardless of race or religion, who heard and embraced it.  
       Emerging from that abominable past is, perhaps, the greatest music & musicians the world has ever known.  In the song Black or White Michael Jackson communicates an entire communities inter-generational pain that first found voice in those slave churches.  Despite his wealth and success he felt compelled to tell the world "I'm not gonna spend my life being a color".  NWA's 1988 record Straight Outta Compton expresses the anger many black people feel when they come to understand that they are going to be denied entry into the middle class body politic.  In 1968 Martin Luther King was gunned down.  Then in 1971, shortly before he too was murdered, a melancholy Marvin Gaye asked "What's Going On"?  
       Before we can understand the music of those artists we need to look further back at their predecessors.  In the early 1900's two musical genres emerged, jazz and blues.  Blues developed on the share crop farms in the sweltering heat of the deep south.  Acoustic guitars, harmonica's and an occasional horn was all that was available amidst the crushing poverty ubiquitous in every share-cropping community. Their music told the story of a people that were still institutionally prevented from enjoying the American dream. 
       Jazz was an urban phenomenon that developed in America's openly bifurcated cities.  It displayed the incredible talents of that generations ability to play together in a new and distinctly American musical genre best described as "freestyle".  These new musical schools emerged in the communities of the least free people in America.  The influence they had on all future rock music is not just ironic, it is also as powerful of a statement as those raised voices found in the antebellum Churches.
       Born into these traditions was a future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and one of the creative inventors of the genre known as "Soul" Ray Charles.  While Ray wasn't alone in the invention of soul music, his 1959 song What'd I Say was the first of this new genre to crossover from the race music R&B charts and smash down the walls on the national (re:white) charts as well.  Ray's success helped fuel the Motown and Stax success that would begin finding it's voice within the next year. It helped musicians like James Brown, Muddy Waters, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, Etta James, & Little Richard get out from under the limiting "race music" label and finally start reaching the entire world.
       What I'd Say is a legendary piece of music that had an accidental beginning. Ray and his band had played their entire set but couldn't leave the stage because their contract obligated them to play for a certain amount of time and that clock had not yet expired.  Ray, drawing on the historically rich influences of every black musician that had come before him, led his band through a musical improvisation that reportedly, for several nights in a row, brought the house down and eventually captured the imagination of the world.  

Ray (left foreground) the band and the Raelettes

       The song starts with Ray's signature electric piano pre-amped and overdriven to produce a sound as gruff and sexy as Ray's gruff and sexy voice.  It's based on a very simple 12 bar blues riff played at a speedy 180 beats per minute.  The piano is backed by a jazz ensemble with Ray's voice and lyrics soaring above it.  The call and response section features Ray and the Raelettes moaning in the most provocative way committed to record at that time.  Eventually the record reaches it's 'climax' with Ray and the girls declaring "Baby, feel alright".  Ray had put sex on a record played in a traditional 12 bar blues, underpinned by a jazz ensemble, coupled with the call and response of the church.

Ray, Quincy Jones, & BB King.
 Soul, Jazz, & Blues 

       To say this was controversial in 1959 is really quite an understatement.  Sexually suggestive songs had been created within the black musicians community for decades, but it wasn't until redneck white boy Jerry Lee Lewis covered Big Mama Thornton's Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On that any of this explicitly sexually charged music saw the light of day with white audiences. What'd I say was the first sexually over-charged song recorded by a black musician that charted with a white audience.  That was revolutionary.
      The song was panned by Billboard and banned on many white rock and roll stations but that didn't stop it.  Like the nightclub audiences where Ray debuted the song the American public quickly learned that resistance was futile.  While conservative older white's flipped the station whenever it came on the kids couldn't stay away.  The clear sexuality of the song, wrapped up in one of the most dance-able tunes ever recorded made the song a natural at every house party.  I always imagined it was the song last heard before an entire generation of teenagers lost their virginity... 


The absolute must see movie for music lovers: Ray
Jaimie Fox's award winning performance of What I'd Say captures the spontaneity that created the song, the controversy that followed it's release, and the success it enjoyed.

   
     

Hi Everyone.  I think I might have fixed the comment section issue.  Please try it and let me know if it doesn't work.
Thanks,
J

By special request: 
Smashmouth: Walking on the Sun

       I promised that, if I could, I would honor requests.  This petition arrived via Monterrey California from someone calling themselves L-squared.  She has asked for the wonderful song Walking on the Sun by the San Jose band Smash Mouth.  After listening to the song again for the first time in several years I simply couldn't resist writing about it.  

Smash Mouth 

       In the 1960's guys like Eric Burden, Ray Manzarek, and Booker T. Jones took the organ out of the church & put it in the middle of the rock and roll stage.  Burden led the Animals to American success during the British invasion with songs like House of the Rising Sun, & We Gotta Get Out of this Place.  Establishing the driving dirty organ sound as a true rock and roll instrument.  The Doors may have been a vehicle for Jim Morrison's eccentric poetry and singing , but it was Ray Manzarek's organ that made the Doors sound connect with the audience.  Songs like Light My Fire, or Moonlight Drive were written on the organ as opposed to adapted to it.  Booker T. made the charts with a great little song called Green Onion, but the organ driven songs coming out of the Stax Studio in Memphis made an entire roster of musicians famous.  As one of the leaders of the Stax house band, Jones helped drive Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, Isaac Hayes, and Sam & Dave among others to stardom the same way the Funk Brothers drove Motown.

Mazarek keeping the Doors focused
despite Jim Morrison's antics

       That R&B organ sound inspired keyboard players everywhere to try and push the boundaries of rock and roll.  Bands like Santana, and J Giels were driven by the organ in equal parts lead and  accompaniment.  Still others. like  Jethro Tull, Yes, & ELP, elevated the organ with keyboard driven arrangements based on classical music creating the new genre progressive rock.  Deep Purple turned up the volume and played a new style of heavy metal on keyboard/organ driven music.  Eventually bands like Boston, Styx, & Journey captured the music world's imagination and the record buying public with keyboard driven hard rock/pop that drew some of it's influence from the recent prog-rock bands as well as from the earlier R&B period.  Interestingly this music was eventually dubbed "corporate rock" and found itself rejected by large portions of the record buying public.  
       Rock and roll never stands still and gradually, with each passing year, the organ's influence as a lead instrument faded.  The 90's grunge and alternative music may have had keyboards sometimes at the center of the arrangement but it was a roots movement driven by guitar and gravel voiced vocalists.  Their lyrics were driven by their own contemporary experiences but the guitar sounds merged the solid guitar crunch of Black Sabbath with the complex melody lines of Deep Purple & Led Zepplin.  Sometimes a keyboard song like Sarah McLachlans' ethereal Possession would emerge from the pack to remind us of the organ's power and it's place at center stage. 
       In 1997 a band called Smash Mouth exploded onto the scene with a hit song called Walking On the Sun.   The multi-platinum selling song reaches into the past to make some observations about pre-packaged, corporate prophet driven contemporary hipness.  The song implores us to look inwards and backwards and reject the false coolness being sold to us on daily.  The quest for legitimacy and realness is one of the driving question that under-lied the grunge & alt musical movements.  In fact, many bands, like Soul Asylum, that reached fame with commercial hit songs were subsequently abandoned by their long time fans as no longer being "real".  This was the inter-generational echo of the rejection of the so called corporate rock from that earlier generation. 
       It's an interesting dichotomy for a band to struggles for years creating songs that register their contempt of false god capitalism while simultaneously reaching for financial success. When their songs finally become accepted by the masses through radio airplay and album sales they're accused of selling out for their new-found commercial success.   Yet without that commercial success they have no stage to tell their anti-establishment stories from.  That paradox has destroyed as many great rock bands as drug use, musical direction, and the constant evolution of "coolness".
       Smash Mouth recognized that weird dichotomy and with an ironic twist they confronted it head on.  Even the name of the band is a football term that reflects the idea of head first confrontation.  Perhaps it is that irony that drove Smash Mouth to perform songs for Hollywood movies later in their career. Selling out without selling out?  Shilling for the false god capitalists without becoming part of their structure?
       In the meantime the band wanted to know what the hell happened to the hippie movement?  Did we abandon idealism for practicalities or did we just become another generation of mindless consumers?  The song packaged this evocative question in a retro style that probably made Rock & Roll Hall of Fame organ player Eric Burden stand up and pump his fist in joy.    

The legendary Booker T. Jones

       It opens with a great doublet run on the bass, accompanied by a ringing cymbal, & some percussion, followed by a vibra-slap hook.  The guitar then falls in with a recognizable grungy aggressive growl and is followed by the organ.  The throwback organ is clearly part of the ensemble driving the song by evocatively shining a light on the sounds of the past.  In the middle of the song,  right before the bridge section, is an organ solo that smartly and quite stunningly captures the best organ sound heard since the song Green Onion helped define the Memphis sound.
       While Smash Mouth did have other hit songs that also were driven by their nostalgia focus none of them ever came close to connecting with the collective psyche of the 18-34 crowd the way Walking on the Sun did.  The questions asked by the song are a philosophical hall of mirrors and the band doesn't offer any answers.  Perhaps that's because there are no real answers to ironic philosophical questions.  But for one shining moment Smash Mouth captured our attention and implored us to think about where we came from and we're we're heading and they did it with one of the greatest songs of the 1990's.  Please take a moment and enjoy Smash Mouth Walking On the Sun


As a reminder, if you want to contact me with comments or requests you can try posting it here or email me at offthechatsblog@gmail.com.  I hope you're enjoying the series.
Thanks,
J




        
     

       

       

Chuck Berry live My Ding-a-Ling

Before you head off to church this morning I want you to watch this video.  Then when your sitting in your pew you're going to remember this and get the giggles. The preacher will give you a stern look but you're going to think about playing with your ding-a-ling.  Have a great day everybody and enjoy this Chuck Berry classic.  By the way, My Ding-a-Ling is Chuck Berry's only Billboard #1 hit which probably tells you more about Billboard than it does about Chuck...

Chuck Berry, America's original rock star still going strong at 80+ years old!!!
Seen here with his familiar Gibson ES-335

Comments and Requests:

I want to say thank you to everyone who has written to me and tried to leave comments.  I don't know why but the "comments" section doesn't work very well.  I will try to fix it if I can.  If it doesn't work for you please send me an email at offthechartsblog@gmail.com.  I really want your feedback and I will take your requests to spotlight an artist of your choosing.  So email or comment if it will let you.  Thanks,  J

Saturday Night Live...
Chuck Berry the worlds first Rock and Roll Guitar God

      Born in St. Louis in 1926 and signed to Chess records in Chicago in 1955 Chuck Berry bridges the gap between the Muddy Waters blues era and what would eventually become the multi-generational rock and roll era.  He made the guitar the centerpiece of every rock band that would come after him and he inspired everyone that ever had rock star dreams.  From 1955 to 1964 he had at least 14 top 10 hits including 4 #1's on the R&B charts which is where black rock and roll lived in those days.

       It really is hard for us to imagine how shocking it was to our bifurcated society to have this black guy roll into town for a gig and have thousands of white kids turn out to dance and cheer.  Sometimes when he'd show up at a gig the venue would not allow him to play because the establishments were for white's only.  But when a well dressed group of nice middle class white kids threatened to become an angry mob they usually relented and let the "colored boy" do his thing.

      Chuck Berry is probably the single most influential musician in rock and roll history.  His songs have been covered & imitated by everyone from Aerosmith to ZZ Top.  While his radio airplay is what has become his lasting legacy this Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's live performances is what helped create the phenomenon that is rock and roll.  The images of racially mixed teenage audiences dancing together in the aisles was both liberating and subversive to the safe, conservative life enjoyed by white America.  

      

Please enjoy the Saturday Night Live feature in the link above, Chuck Berry live performing Roll Over Beethoven.

Comments and Requests:

 I want to say thank you to everyone who has written to me and tried to leave comments.  I don't know why but the "comments" section doesn't work very well.  I will try to fix it if I can.  If it doesn't work for you please send me an email at offthechartsblog@gmail.com.  I really want your feedback and I will take your requests to spotlight an artist of your choosing.  So email or comment if it will let you.  Thanks,  J

Aerosmith: When the Lightening Strikes  

       Aerosmith burst onto the music scene in 1973 with their very strong self titled debut album.  It charted the songs Make It, Mama Kin, and Dream On.  Mama Kin is still a concert staple for the band and is extremely popular with every high school guitar band that ever turned their amps up to 11.  The rock classic Dream On is considered by fans and critics to be one of the greatest songs recorded by anyone anywhere ever.  It is still one of the bands featured, must play, songs at every concert.  

The Toxic Twins Tyler & Perry

       They followed their debut with 4 more really great albums, including 1975's blockbuster Toys In the Attic featuring the song Walk This Way.  By 1978 the band was easily one of the most popular bands in the world and could be heard regularly on rock radio. Unfortunately drug use had started hampering their studio creativity and effecting their live shows.  Despite the developing issues within the band, they returned to the studio and started recording 1979's Night In the Ruts album.  
      Complicating the already difficult situation was the record labels push to get the band back out on the road to generate revenue.  After 5 successful studio albums and 21 singles Aerosmith was broke.  In an attempt to satisfy their commitments to Columbia Records and with a tenuous grip on their careers the band hurried to finish the album and then set out on the forced march concert tour.  Very quickly they reached their breaking point when guitarist Joe Perry walked out. The record reflected the band's current state of existence with disjointed & uninspired songs & their stage show wasn't any better.  I saw the band during this period and to be honest I thought they were terrible.  The poor stage performances panned by the press and with the album also a critical and commercial failure Aerosmith found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Aerosmith today

       The band would eventually return to the heights of popularity and financial success.  Eventually they started making new and strongly creative albums as well as a return to exciting and inspired stage shows.  This re-birth started when rap artists Run-DMC asked Perry and singer Steven Tyler to join them on their cover of the song Walk This Way.  This fueled commercial interest and a creative resurgence within the band. They capitalized on this with the album Permanent Vacation which spawned the hits Dude Looks Like a Lady, Jamie's Got a Gun, Rag Doll, & Angel.  But this was still 7 years in the future from the desperate times the band faced after the Night in the Ruts failure and Perry's exit.
       Without Perry the band returned to the studio and put together an album ironically called Rock and a Hard Place. Perry was replaced by Jimmy Crespo whose excellent guitar work can be heard on records by Meatloaf, Stevie Nicks, and Billy Squier.  As the recording progressed the writing was on the wall as guitar player Brad Whitford reached his breaking point and he to left the band. Whitford is listed as a "contributing musician" in the album credits.  His place was taken by guitarist Rick Dufay who was known to Aerosmith through producer Jack Douglas.  As to be expected, without Perry & Whitford, and the band being led by a less than 100% Steven Tyler they created an even more disjointed and less successful record than the Night in the Ruts disaster. 

       The album did however, include one true gem and it's the song I've chosen to feature here.  The song is called When the Lightening Strikes and it is a surprisingly strong offering from a band that, by 1980, had thoroughly lost it's way.  The song  reached #21 on the charts but over the years has become a forgotten classic.  The video the band produced for the song is a strange mixture of what looks like an in-studio rehearsal and a warm up for an outdoor gang fight replete with leather, & chains.  The film features a gaunt Steven Tyler and oddly enough baseball bats hitting cantaloupe's.  In the background you can see both Crespo and Dufay.  Dufay is the guy playing the left-handed Stratocaster upside down as a righty.  I guess that would be considered a reverse Hendrix?  Crespo's leads in the song are very similar to what Whitford and Perry would have probably created and it helps make the song sound familiar to Aerosmith fans.  It really is a great song and is certainly the best thing Aerosmith created between 1977's Back in the Saddle and 1987's Dude Looks Like a Lady.
   

     
     

Comments and Requests

Before the next entry I want to say thank you to everyone who has written to me and tried to leave comments.  I don't know why but the "comments" section doesn't work very well.  I will try to fix it if I can.  If it doesn't work for you please send me an email at offthechartsblog@gmail.com.  I really want your feedback and I will take your requests to spotlight an artist of your choosing.  So email or comment if it will let you.  Thanks,  J

The Funk Brother What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

 featuring Joan Osborne

Some of the Funk Brothers together in 2002

       Motown records was started in 1959 by song writer and producer Berry Gordy.  Much has been written, both positive and negative, about Gordy in the ensuing decades but one thing is certain, the man was a visionary.  Before the establishment of Motown Records many black artists had achieved "crossover" fame.  Guys like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, & Fats Domino created chart topping rock classics and had sold tons of records but still found themselves held back by a lack of promotion and racism. Gordy's vision was to find the next generation of these genius musicians and put them in a studio with the finest writers, producers, musicians, and equipment and then invest heavily in the promotion of their music they created thereby leveling the playing field that has been skewed by seperatism. 

Stevie Wonder backed by the fabulous
Funk Brothers 

        To that end he assembled a band whose music, if my research is correct, provided the backing track for 31 #1 hits plus hundreds of top 40 hits between 1961 & 1972.  That's more #1 hits than the Beatles, Stones, Elvis, and Beach Boys combined*. Sadly the musicians that brought this magic to your speakers remained anonymous and the credit, and the bulk of the earnings, was shared between the singers, writers, producers, and of course Berry Gordy.  When your listening to the Temptations, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, The Marvelettes, The Four Tops, all of the other top flight Motown singing groups you are listening to the Funk Brothers.   

       In 2002 the world was finally introduced to this incomparable group of musicians in the amazing film Standing in the Shadows of Motown.  It tells the story of these unheralded rock and roll heroes as well as the times they lived in.  This group of musicians believed they were so good that you could pretty much stick any competent singer in front of them and they'd become stars*.  That sounds like a conceit, but the film makers do exactly that. They put lesser known singers in front of the band and, as the Funk Brothers predicted, they make magic.

       The song featured here is What Becomes of the Broken Hearted.  The song was a hit for singer Jimmy Ruffin in 1966.  Ruffin, the brother of Temptations singer David Ruffin, was a relatively minor artist in the Motown stable.  He was a good, but not great singer, and this was by far the biggest hit he ever had.  In the 2002 concert version the Funk Brothers are fronted by Joan Osborne.  She had a minor hit with the song One Of Us which went on to become the theme song to the short lived TV show Joan Of Arcadia.  With the Funk Brothers as her backup band Osborne puts on a goose bump raising performance.  Proving that you can pretty much stand anybody in front of the Funk Brothers and they will become stars.

Accepting their well deserved Gammy in 2004
Better late than never!!!

Some of what I've written can be credited to the documentary "Standing In the Shadows of Motown". While  I have taken pains to not plagiarize any copy-written material it is difficult to write anything about the fabulous Funk Brothers without referencing this definitive award winning film. I've placed a * next to any statement that cites this film.