Strumming With The Rhythm …

My favourite rock and roll songs are:

1) Johnny B Goode 

2) Roll over Beethoven 

3) The last (rock and roll) song I heard by:

• The Beatles 
• Led Zeppelin 
• Tom Petty 
• AC/DC
• The Who 
• The Kinks 
• The Police 
• The Rolling Stones 
• Queen 
• U2
• Chuck Berry, obviously 

Oh, or Elvis, CCR, Buddy Holly, Springsteen, Dire Straits or ...

The First Cut Is The Deepest

When you’re huge, you’re huge, and after you’ve been around a while, your entire body of work tends to morph into one, uh, huge, thing.

So it begs the question, who would we still view – years later - as huge if they had stopped after only one album?  Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, Buddy Holly  …

After that, I dunno.  Adele?  The Band?  The Byrds?  Crosby Stills and Nash?  Dire Straits?  Eagles?  Elvis?  Jeff Beck?  Steely Dan?  Maybe.

There are a lot of names from the rock pantheon missing, a lot of acts that took a couple or three albums to really establish a place in music history.  The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, U2, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, AC/DC …

Maybe we’d remember them all, but more as flashes in the pan than big influencers.  But not many artists nailed it the first time out.

Getting Better

Part II of my rebuttal to Professor Armand Leroi’s preposterous assertion that The Beatles had virtually no influence on pop music.

Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, the Everlys - played by punks, punks who grew up listening to show tunes, folk songs, sing-alongs, music hall numbers, cowboy movies, and Granny’s weekly performance at the pub.

By the time they had emerged from Hamburg and those 6 hour sets, The Beatles had developed their own unique sound, a sound which incorporated that early rockabilly, 50’s R&B, and yes, their childhood influences.  They had become adept at absorbing other styles and transforming them into their own brand of rock and roll.

Then there was soul music, and the pixie dust of Motown, which had, in its own way, done the same thing.

Dylan, folk-rock, classical, Eastern, psychedelic, singer/songwriter, hard rock, each one studied, re-imagined and grafted on to that ever-expanding base.  Each new experiment set someone else off on another new idea, which looped right back to The Beatles for them to start all over again.  Getting so much better all the time.

There is no scientific way to explain the influence of The Beatles, because it magic.

Rubber Soul

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins …  Yes.  Got it.  But without Motown, would we even have the Beatles?

So Many Roads

With apologies to the purists, here are the songs that helped me figure out that  The Blues was the thing:

·      Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

·      Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks

·      The Doors – Riders On The Storm

·      Canned Heat – On The Road Again

·      Cream – Crossroads

·      Led Zeppelin – Since I’ve Been Loving You

·      Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel

·      Johnny Winter – Highway 61 Revisited

·      The Beatles – Come Together

·      Creedence Clearwater Revival – Suzie-Q

Yeah, I know – but we all get there by different roads.  For me, Main Street was called Beatles Avenue.  Take a right at Rock & Roll Drive, left on Psychedelic Boulevard, left again at Hard Rock Road, slip down a back alley and you find this cool juke joint where they’re all playing:  B.B., Muddy, Sonny Boy, Howlin’’ Wolf, Hooker …  all of ‘em.

Does the road matter if we reach the destination?

Nevermind the …

According to Rolling Stone, punk is now 40 years old, as celebrated in The 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time.

Sure, you could call the release of The Ramones a start.  Or you could go back to the 60’s with MC5 or The Velvet Underground.  Or you could look at pictures of The Beatles in Hamburg and marvel that the same guys played on Ed Sullivan wearing suits.  Then there’s Elvis, or Eddie Cohcrane, or …

Let’s face it:  Rock and Roll has an edge.  It has attitude.  It has barely contained and badly channeled rage – some of it sexual, some of it social.  It’s for kids who have energy and excitement but no power.

Sometimes that music is raw and unnerving.  Sometimes it’s subjected to more refined production.  But the edge is always there.

Personally, I prefer well-produced music, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get (or enjoy) it when I hear what’s come to be called Punk.  So rock – or punk – on, people.

All Shook Up

The hips, the hair, the snarly smile … oh, and the voice, the energy and the music.  Elvis was, in the beginning anyway, a monumental force, arguably the biggest weapon of mass seduction ever to explode onto the music scene.

So it wasn’t surprising that Rolling Stone conducted a Readers Poll on the 10 Best Elvis Presley Songs around about the time of (what would have been were it not for all that pie) his 80^th birthday.

Not surprised to see Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender, and Jailhouse Rock on the list, and I’ve always loved Suspicious Minds.  Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d seen him live, but it’s disappointing to see An American Trilogy on the list.  It just seems to exemplify the sad caricature he devolved into.

And I know it’s a readers poll, so we don’t get a panel of experts assessing his impact and legacy, but it’s still kinda strange not to see the likes of Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel and All Shook Up on the list.  It was those early, bluesy rockers that set Elvis apart.

But what do I know?  I’m just a Canadian kid who discovered music in the 60’s, when it was, sadly, all over but for the black velvet paintings.

Music in the Cafes at Night; Revolution in the Air

Beale Street, Bleeker Street, Haight-Ashbury, Sunset Strip, Music Row and Motown.

These are the streets that changed music history, according to Rolling Stone - or is it Chrysler?  And of course, by Motown they mean West Grand Boulevard, but we’ll let that slide, shall we?

Elvis, Dylan, The Dead, The Doors, all those Motown hits, all that Country … no one’s gonna argue that some pretty important music came off these streets – and still does.

Here’s another one, though, that’s kind of a glaring omission:  Abbey Road.  A little band called The Beatles made a few hit records there, and I’m told they enjoyed a bit of influence in their day.  Oh, and The Hollies, The Shadows, Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Oasis.

Oh wait a minute!  Guess they don’t get many Dodge Challengers driving around London.

The Session Men

Gibson’s 10 Great Session Guitarists brings some well-deserved focus to some brilliant musicians who have delivered a heap of magic over the years.

Lukather, Cropper, Carlton, Tedesco, Atkins, Spedding … where would pop/rcok/blues/soul be without them?  Or, to put it another way, where would Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Sam Cooke, Bryan Ferry, Elton John and  Aretha Franklin be without them?

OK, some of them would probably have done OK, but you get the point.

And then there was this cat by the name of Jimmy Page.

Note to Gibson.  No one is going to dispute the importance of James Jamerson, but he was a bass player.  Is there really no other session guitarist out there that should have made the list?

Dream Baby

Growing up, I never knew what to make of Roy Orbison.  Oh Pretty Woman was a great rocker, but it didn’t quite have the same edge as contemporary Beatles or Stones songs.  And the rest of his canon seemed better suited to my parents’ radio station than mine.

I know his tenor voice was operatic, but all those strings!  Sure, it was the doo-wop era, and rock had been tamed, bottled and homogenized, but where were the twangy guitars?  Where was the attitude?  Roy Orbison seemed more like Gene Pitney or Shelley Fabares than Elvis or Chuck Berry.

Pretty good with the sad songs, though.

Maybe it was just the production values of the time.  Much later on, in the 80’s working with Jeff Lynne, Roy proved he could rock out with the Travelling Willburys and U2.  And if you’ve ever seen Black and White Night, I’m sure you’ll agree his old classics sparked some great rock and roll moments when supported by the likes of Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Elvis Costello.

Ringo has said that Roy was the only act The Beatles didn’t want to follow.  With a different producer in a different era, Roy Orbison could have had ‘em all running scared.  Except it’s obvious everybody loved him just the way he was.

Mission Impossible

Now here’s a list that nicely demonstrates how North American monoculture has shattered into a million fragments.  The Recording Industry Association of America actually compiled a list of the Songs of the Century (20^th).  So it’s gonna reflect a whole bunch of tastes and styles over an entire hundred years.

And be agreed to by … no one, not even the most broad-minded, culturally curious, historically informed I-love-everything kinda person.  Up until about 1970, which incorporates all but two of the songs, you would have got reasonable support for this list, but no more.

The top three are probably hard to argue:

1. Over the Rainbow, Judy Garland

2. White Christmas, Bing Crosby

3. This Land Is Your Land, Woodie Guthrie

After that, it’s hard to keep your personal biases at bay.  Mine kicked in big time.  For example:

- American Pie is #5.  Really?   Ahead of The Beatles, The Stones, Chuck Berry?

- Elvis is missing?

- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?  Seriously?

I mean, I know they had to include big band, jazz, ragtime, tin pan alley, patriotic songs and all that.  I get it.  But only two country songs?  Only four songs from England?  Tina Turner beats Fats Waller and Hoagy Carmichael?

And, hey!  There is some cheating here:  The West Side Story and The Sound of Music full soundtracks are on a list of songs?

You’ll find your own issues, outrages and mysteries, I’m sure.  Brave people, the RIAA.

The Men With Cricket Bats

Well, Ian Faith of Spinal Tap doesn’t make Gibson’s 10 Famous Rock and Roll Managers, because he is, after all, fictitious.  But he does capture the essence of the ones who do, which are:

Kit Lambert, Colonel Tom Parker, Malcom McLaren, Andrew Loog Oldham, Tony Jeffries, Albert Grossman, Don Arden, Allen Klein, Peter Grant, Brian Epstein.

Creating image, managing the brand, conceiving new directions, bullying young punks into becoming skilled songwriters, looking after the dark side, feeding the machine, and at times micromanaging the personal lives of their charges – these guys definitely provided the script for the Spinal Tap character.

Including the cricket bat.

They provided an invaluable service to their artists, and, in turn, to us.  After all, with the possible exception of Mick Jagger, none of the artists these guys managed had any business acumen at all.  Can you imagine The Beatles managed by John Lennon?  The Stones managed by Keith Richards?  Zeppelin managed by John Bonham?  The Who managed by Keith Moon?

Makes you wonder if some of those one-hit-wonders disappeared because they didn’t have good management.  So hats off to the managers on the list, even if some of them are more than a bit creepy.

Hoochie Coochie Man

Q: What do Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Cream, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Steppenwolf, the Allman Brothers, Otis Rush, Gary Moore, Koko Taylor, Canned Heat, the Stones, Steve Miller, the Animals, Tom Petty, Sam Cooke, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Elvis, and the Everly Brothers all have in common?

A: Willie Dixon.  They all recorded Willie Dixon songs, per Gibson’s 10 Great Willie Dixon Songs.

Oh, and Paul Butterfield, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After, Etta James, the Pointer Sisters, Jeff Beck, James Cotton, Hendrix, Megadeth and the White Stripes.

That’s quite a list.  A hall of fame, who’s-who, Desert Island, best-ever-playlist kind of list.

You can make your case for Robert Johnson, or Muddy or B.B. as the most influential blues musician of all time, but when it comes to blues songwriting, no one else comes close.  It’s Willie Dixon that make the world wanna know what this all about.

A Big Deal

This is not, repeat not a political statement:  FDR’s New Deal was the best thing that ever happened to music.

Stay with me.  Without the New Deal’s “make work” projects, Alan Lomax would not have been sent out to collect folk music.  If Alan Lomax hadn’t done that, we might never have heard of Son House, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Doc Boggs, Big Bill Broonzy and Skip James.  Woody Guthrie might be an interesting footnote.

If the folk music, white and black, of the south had not been captured and exposed to a broader audience, the Chicago Blues as we know it might never have come into being, “race music” and rhythm and blues might never have been noticed by white kids.  There might never have been a folk revival in the 50’s.

No delta blues?  Nothing in Chicago?  No folk revival?  No:

Beatles

Rolling Stones

Bob Dylan

Led Zeppelin

Cream

Animals

Shall I go on?

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins…  life, and culture, as we know it would simply not exist.

I can’t imagine a better use of government money.  Big Bird might just agree.

Under the Apex

That earlier post about U2 being the last great rock band got me thinking about who gets on the list, relative positioning, etc..

So if we stick with “larger than life” as one category, what’s below that?  I’d have to say “huge and influential.”  Really good.  Not quite larger than life.  As good or better than the “larger than life” folks, but never quite got there.  Maybe broke up or died too soon.

Below that?  Well, important.  Maybe not as big in our consciousness as those in the “huge” category, but very influential.  Just ask the folks on the “huge” list.

Below that would be the legions of acts you really like but …

Throw this all into a graphic and you get something like this:

 

The Beatles, of course, are larger than larger than life.  This is about perception more than taste, but I assume few would argue with the top two tiers.  Notice my indecision on The Police.  Almost got there, but not quite in my book anyway.

Notice my cop-outs on Dylan and Michael Jackson.  I know many would place them along with The Beatles.  Solid arguments could be made for any of the categories, so maybe this is more about taste than perception.

I didn’t get lazy in the “important” category; I just ran out of real estate.  There are simply too many influential blues greats, Motown artists and early rockers to list.  And maybe that’s the point of the graphic; it’s less about ranking and more about connecting.

Your taste – or perception – will differ from mine, so you may have different names, or different positions.  That’s cool.  Go build your own pyramid,

Rattle and Hum

I was watching the U2 movie a while back and it occurred to me that U2 was the last great rock band.

Don’t get me wrong; there have been a ton of wonderful bands over the last 20 years or so, but U2 was the last one that was larger than life.  You know, Rolling-Stones-Led-Zeppelin-Queen larger than life.  Can-do-no-wrong larger than life.  Know-they’re-as-big-as-Elvis larger than life.  You-should-listen-up larger than life.

Terrific movie.  If you haven’t seen it, do so.  Kinda interesting insights into the band (and ourselves), and constant reminders that these guys are good.  The musicianship, the energy, the passion  …  awesome.  And, although they have had some great moments over the last 25 years, the film catches U2 at their peak, playing songs from their best period. 

U2 carried on the tradition of rock super-hugeness.  And by the time the movie was made, they were also filling a void.  Zep was done.  Freddie, well not dead yet, but …  The Stones were iffy.  U2 were the last ones standing.

Lotta great bands and fabulous music out there, but no one since has managed to achieve the larger-than-life stature.  It’s a good thing we’ve had the boys from Dublin to carry the torch.

But it’s been a while.  Who’s gonna step up?

It Won’t Be Long

The thing that jumps out of the Rolling Stone Top 25 Teen Idol Breakout Moments is that not many of them lasted beyond the moment.

Fabian, The Monkees, The Cassidy’s, Bay City Rollers, New Kids On The Block … all gone.  Long gone.  Gone and forgotten.

The list has some noteworthy exceptions, of course: Elvis, The Beatles, The Jackson 5 (well, Michael anyway), and Frank Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra?  Well sure.  The whole idol, screaming girl thing started with him.  But RS does describe the list as “of the rock era,” and the hysteria over Frank started in 1942 – hardly part of the rock era.  OK, let’s not quibble.  Strangers In The Night was #1 midway through The Beatles run of hits – and played on the same radio stations.

But most of the names on the list are in the “oh-ya-I-forgot-all-about-him/her/them” category.  Not surprising, because most of the acts were manufactured.  They were not the real deal.  They were not artists who happened to make it big.  They were a product, created to capitalize on the teen idol impulse, exploiting the popular musical style of the day.

Popularity was intense but fleeting, there being no substance to the material.

The list is actually an interesting reflection of our culture, though, isn’t it?  A few timeless greats whose impact cannot be truly measured, and a bunch of fluff quickly consumed and more quickly forgotten.

The wolves are always hungry.

Twisted, Sister

How do people even come up with this stuff?  Rolling Stone did a reader’s poll on 10 Artists Who Should Return As Holograms.

The poll was taken after Snoop Dogg had a hologram of Tupac Shakur during a concert, or something.  So, the morbid question is “Hey kids!  What dead people do you want to see on stage?  Cool!  Fun!  Woot!” 

And the list is: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Notorious B.I.G..

Hey kids!  Anybody not guess who would be on the list?  OK, I guessed Keith Moon instead of Notorious.  Drummers never did get enough respect.

More than a little sick, and absolutely pointless.

Oh, and apparently there is some ongoing tour out there featuring an Elvis hologram.  Talk about the heebie-jeebies!

I liked it better when they just sold those Elvis-on-black-velvet paintings at corner gas stations.  When it comes to cheese, I’ll take low tech.

Producers Rule

I keep stumbling over all these interesting lists, but it’s curious that there doesn’t seem to be one about record producers.  Let’s face it:  production can have a huge impact – positive or negative – on a recording.

So who should go on the list?  Well …

For sure:

George Martin, Sam Phillips, Jimmy Page and Roy Thomas Baker.  Geniuses, whose impact is undeniable.

Probably:

Bob Ezrin, Phil Collins, Glyn Johns and Bob Rock.  Successful, sought after, respected.

I Would Hope:

Jeff Lynne, Muff Winwood, David A. Stewart, Steve Lillywhite and – my favourite under-rated guy – Ian Thomas.  Talented guys who know their stuff.

I’ve left band-as-producer off the list because it’s too hard to tell who should really get the credit.

But no question producers are important.  Dunno about you but I have frequently had the same attitude about record producers that many people have about movie directors.  You know: if such-and-such made this, it must be good.

And I’m rarely disappointed.

Under Cover

Another intriguing list, Gibson's Top 50 Cover Songs of All Time

No surprise to me, #1 is Jimi Hendrix's version of Dylan's All Along The Watchtower. The old saying about doing a cover is, "be true to the original, and make it your own." Well, Hendrix stole this song. It's his song now, not Dylan's.

Some others that come close to theft are:
#10 - Aretha Franklin's version of Respect (oh, did Otis Redding write that?)
#20 - The Who's version of Young Man Blues (who is Mose Allison actually?)
#23 - The Black Crowe's version of Hard To Handle (who knew Otis wrote southern rock?)
#49 - CCR's version of Suzie Q (that song defined them)

The songs that come closest to the maxim (balancing respect with a fresh sound) are:
#2 - The Beatles version of Twist And Shout
#7 - The Byrd's version of Mr. Tambourine Man
#10 - Elvis's Hound Dog
#27 - Talking Head's version of Take Me To The River
#29 - Elvis's Blue Suede Shoes (sorry Carl)

In the "decent cover ... interesting take" category, I'd place:
#13 - Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of Hendrix's Little Wing
#18/#24 - The Stones' covers of Not Fade Away and Love In Vain
#28 - Red Hot Chili Peppers' version of Higher Ground

In the "some songs just shouldn't be covered" (and therefore should not be on the list) category, I'd put:
#17 - GNR's molestation of Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door
#26 - Ike & Tina Turner's cartoon version of Proud Mary
#33 - Van Halen's disfiguring of Oh Pretty Woman
#35 - Aerosmith's criminal rendition of Come Together

Interesting, isn't it, that a bunch of these artists are on the list as coverers and coverees: The Beatles, Hendrix, The Stones, CCR, and Otis (not mentioned above, but he is).

Interesting, too, that so many songs on the list are rediscovering of old blues tunes.