Tune In

Going back to the Hunter Davies book, I have read a lot about The Beatles.  A lot.

But this new book, All These Years (Volume 1), by Mark Lewisohn, is nothing short of amazing.  After a lifetime of listening, watching, playing and reading, you’d think you’d get to the point where you know it all.

Wrong.

The plot doesn’t change, of course.  But with 800 pages that only get you to the end of 1962, this book is dense.  Fascinating additional details, wonderful new insights, and more than a few myths exploded.

Can’t wait for the next volume.

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.

Remember I’ll Always Be True

Well, along with a big bunch of other people, I’ll be watching the 50^th anniversary tribute of The Beatles’ first appearance on Ed Sullivan when it airs this Sunday.  And along with what I suspect will be a healthy majority of ‘em, I’ll have my fingers crossed that it’s not too corny, schmaltzy or over-done.  Unlikely, but it is possible.

But whether I shed tears of nostalgic joy or wince in embarrassment, I’ll tell you this:  aside from being born, The Beatles are the single biggest fact of my life.

I’m not talking about teenybopper infatuation, mindless celebrity idolization, or stalker-like obsession.  The Beatles tapped into something bigger than themselves, something enervating, life giving, transcendent – and it touched millions of us in profound ways.

Friends, teachers, work colleagues – even family – come and go.  Many earned my respect, gratitude and love.  Some influenced my thinking, and who I became.  A few provided excellent role models.  The Beatles did something even bigger: they defined my culture.

I was two months shy of my tenth birthday on February 9, 1964, and a week or so short of sixteen when Paul announced that The Beatles had broken up.  So growing up, they were a dominant news item, the biggest positive, a cosmic force.  The Space Program, Civil Rights, Vietnam, pending nuclear Armageddon  … they were all out there.  But for many of us, these things were only visible and understood through music and pop culture, which was dominated by The Beatles.  They were the lens through which we watched the world.  They were the shoes we would put on so we could walk in it.

Sometimes what The Beatles did was sad.  Sometimes it was embarrassing, even painful.  But mostly they were joyful and they were always magical.  They changed all of us, and their impact is still being felt.

As Bob Wooler wrote in the very first article ever written about The Beatles (in Mersey Beat on August 31, 1961), “I don’t think anything like them will happen again.”

Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll

It doesn’t sound very confident, but Gibson’s 10 Greatest Covers if Chuck Berry Songs notes that, with the possible exception of the Beatles, no other artist has had as many of his songs covered by his peers.

Possible?  How about looking it up?  Or just offer an opinion, like this one: no other artist has had a bigger influence over rock and roll during the last 60 years. 

And Gibson’s list proves that.  The Beatles, The Stones, Bowie, The Kinks, AC/DC, Hendrix … they all paid homage to Berry’s iconic tunes.  And everything that followed pretty much stemmed from that list of bands.

Add the fact that Chuck Berry’s guitar playing is even more important, and you get one colossally influential cat.

Got to agree with the comments below the article, though.  Johnny Winter’s version of Johnny B. Goode should be on the list.

Sweet Jam

Further to that last post on The Charlatans, if you go back to the references you get one awesome jam session:  John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mick, Keef and Stevie Winwood.

Woulda got some sweet sounds out of that supersession!

How High

Do you know the Charlatans?  If not, you should.  Trippy riffs, funky bass, great harmonies and killer organ.

It’s as if Oasis had put a little less Beatles into their music and substituted Traffic – oh, and a healthy dash of Stones.

Sound cool?  It is.  It’s the kind of music that should be forever.

Mind-Blowing Music

Gibson has a list of 10 Classic Albums to Expand Your Musical Horizons, and a message:  get outside your comfort zone.

The list includes work by the likes of Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Black Keys and Tom Waits, with whom I easily relate.

But it also includes artists I have shied away from, such as Coltrane, Hank Williams and Brian Eno.

And, sadly, it contains a few artists I had never heard of but probably should have, like Sonny Sharrock, Junior Kimbrough and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Reading the write-ups, I can see that each of these artists would have something to offer that relates to genres and styles I like, but pushes me past where I normally go if left to my own devices.  In terms of lighting that creative spark, it’s a great idea to immerse yourself in something new.

And if I think about it, most of my heroes did/do just that.

Thanks, Gibson.  You’ve given me some homework to do.

This Hell I Live In

With apologies to Mssrs. Lennon, McCartney, Winwood, Waters, Gilmour, Springsteen, Johnson and Anonymous …

The five saddest songs ever written are actually all in Les Miserables.

Arena Rock

The 70’s was (were?) a good time to be a young rock fan, so says the Rolling Stone Readers Poll on the 10 Best Metal/Hard Rock Albums of the 1970s.

Sure.  Until things got a little excessive.  Then again, it was better than disco.

Anyway, here’s the list:

  1. Zeppelin - IV

  2. Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti

  3. Sabbath - Paranoid

  4. Deep Purple – Machine Head

  5. Van Halen

  6. AC/DC – Highway to Hell

  7. Aerosmith - Rocks

  8. Kiss - Alive

  9. Sabbath – Master of Reality

10. Montrose

I know I’m in the minority in my inability to adore Black Sabbath and Kiss, but it certainly isn’t a surprise to find them on the list.  At least Zep and Deep Purple are well represented.

Then again, a strong case could be made for a top ten list than only had Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple albums.  OK, ok, we’d need a couple of AC/DC albums to get to 10, and that wouldn’t hurt one bit.  But you know, Houses of the Holy, Deep Purple in Rock, Made in Japan … these were big records.

Not complaining, just sayin’.

Just Nod If You Can Hear Me

Back on the sad songs.   Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb does a spectacularly morose job of summarizing the human condition.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

Ouch!  Life is a pointless, hopeless big tease, only coming through in waves, and we can’t hear it.

Is there anyone at home?  No.  You are receding.  We are all alone.

I mean, hopefully most of us don’t feel this way too often, but we all do just a little from time to time, right?

Depressing, frightening  - and definitely sad.