A Lifetime-Plus of Music

     By the late 1960s, most of the rock and roll stars of the 1950s had either passed away or faded into a relatively obscure background.  Even the biggest star of them all, Elvis Presley, struggled to find his place after nearly a decade of mediocre movies and mostly mediocre music that strayed further and further from the relevant sounds of the time.  With all of that said, Elvis Presley was still “The King of Rock and Roll”, and finally he broke free of that terrible movie deal to deliver a Christmas television appearance in 1968, followed by the album “From Elvis in Memphis”, released in 1969.  This album is the 322^nd rated album on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     Following the same approach as the recently discussed album by Dusty Springfield, Elvis recorded this album with a collection of famous Memphis studio musicians known as “The Memphis Boys”.  What resulted was an outstanding intersection of soul, country, and rock and roll, with the greatest of them all back on the microphone.  Over the years, Elvis proved he could sing almost any style of music and make it sound great.  On this album, the most visible single was “In the Ghetto”, an outstanding showcase for his depth as a vocalist.  The other most impactful song from these sessions was released as a single but not originally included on this album, “Suspicious Minds”.  With its building tempo and intensity, there was nobody like Elvis who could deliver such a dramatic performance.

     Beyond those well remembered songs, this album has many other standout tracks.  “I’m Movin’ On” takes you back to the early Presley days, and the intense “Power of My Love” serves as another reminder that there was only one Elvis.  “Gentle on My Mind” is a beautiful ballad that captures Elvis as a storyteller, and the bluesy “After Loving You” hits you right in the heart.

     Perhaps the most eerie foreshadow is the song “Long Black Limousine”, a somber ode to a funeral procession, that instantly takes me back to that awful day in August of 1977 when my first musical hero shockingly passed.  I was only ten years old at the time, but I will never forget the day Elvis died, as my mom, her friend and I sat around late into the night in shock, listening to every Elvis album we had.

          To this day, like many others, I’m mesmerized by his talent, presence, unique celebrity status, his mysterious presence in Graceland, and his charisma.  Above all of that, Elvis was an amazing singer and performer, and although his career had many ups and downs, I’m so grateful he had this additional shining moment to remind all those who came after him, why he was, and will always be, “The King of Rock and Roll”.

     Today we jump back into the world of funk and soul, with master soul vocalist Isaac Hayes, with his classic album, “Hot Buttered Soul”.  This album is the 5^th rated soul album of all time, as rated by digitaldreamdoor.com, and has one of the more iconic album covers of the late 1960s, featuring Hayes and his bald head, complete with shades and chains.

     I have typically associated soul music as a variant of rhythm and blues, with neatly packaged single-friendly tracks.  However, on this album, we only have four songs, including the 18 minute “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, and an unexpected surprise, a 12 minute slow jam of the Burt Bacharach classic, “Walk On By”.  I’m not sure where the line blurs between funk and soul, but this album, especially those two numbers, feature the slow reverberation and funk beat, blended with horns, keyboards, and electric guitar.  Hayes was very intentional with the mood he was targeting on this album, and he absolutely nailed it.  Aside from Mary Poppins, he also might have the single longest one word song title, “Hyperbolicsyllabicesquedalymistic”, which turns up more of a funk bass, followed by the ballad which oddly opens with a piano opening similar to “Desperado” by the Eagles.

     At the end of the day, another great mood album added to the mix, and the aperture of my musical viewpoint continues to widen.  This is a great album, beginning to end.

     If you have read my blog for most of its run, by now, you know I have an affinity for tight harmony vocals, and in the world of rock and roll music, there are few more distinctive harmony vocals than the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash, particularly the high harmony vocal from David Crosby.  Today we listen to their debut album, “Crosby, Stills & Nash”, which is the 161^st rated album on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     Each of these three came from a previously successful act.  David Crosby hailed from the previously discussed “The Byrds”, Graham Nash previously appeared in “The Hollies”, and Stephen Stills came from “Buffalo Springfield”, who gave us one of the 1960s most identifiable songs, “For What It’s Worth”, a major favorite of mine.  This album also opens with Stephen Stills’ ode to his beautiful and Colorado raised former girlfriend Judy Collins.  This song remains the most well-known on this album, and it is pure CS&N.  Next comes the other single from the album, “Marrakesh Express”, featuring Graham Nash on lead.  Not released as a single, Stephen Stills also gave us the beautiful “Helplessly Hoping” on side two.  Like many acts with multiple singers and songwriters, it appears that in most cases, whoever wrote the song usually assumed lead vocals on the song.  Two other favorites of mine are more upbeat, “Pre-Road Downs” by Nash, and “Wooden Ships” by David Crosby, probably the most funky-jam song on the album, a style of which is not always associated with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

     A few of the songs fall back for me, but in general, it is easy for me to see why this collection of talent made such an impact in the months leading up to the Woodstock Music Festival, where they were presented to a larger audience publicly for the first time.  Always socially conscious and very much in step with the time, Crosby, Stills and Nash were one of the earliest formations of what would ultimately be referred to as a “super-group”.  I still remain hopeful I can one day catch them in concert before their time closes, which isn’t an easy ask given their advancing age and compounded mutual animosity within the group that has built up over the years.

     As much I love the Who, I have found their albums to date a bit inconsistent, to say the least.  That ends here, with Pete Townshend’s rock opera, “Tommy”.  Ultimately converted into a full-length feature film and a highly successful Broadway musical, “Tommy” is the 190^th rated album on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     “Tommy” is the unusual story of a boy born as his father went off to war.  The trauma of his mother’s love triangle and the resulting events, including the sexual molestation from other relatives rendered Tommy deaf, dumb and blind.  Through a series of treatments and events, Tommy discovers that the game of pinball allows him to rediscover the outside world, and he ultimately rises to great status with many followers, only to see it all come crashing down again.

     The musicality of this album is classic Who, with Keith Moon driving the pace on drums, and Pete and Roger Daltrey leading the way on vocals.  It is a great collection of songs.  Casual fans will most quickly recognize “Pinball Wizard”, but in full musical fashion, starting with an overture, this album has many great songs.  “Eyesight To The Blind”, “The Acid Queen”, “Tommy Can You Hear Me?”, and “I’m Free” are major highlights on this double album.  The most powerful moment for me, is the stirring outro following Tommy’s exposure and fall-down during “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

     “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me…”

    “Listening to you, I get the music, gazing at you, I get the heat, following you I climb the mountain, I get excitement at your feet…”

     “Right behind you, I see the millions, on you, I see the glory, from you, I get opinions, from you, I get the story…”

     I have seen the Who in concert several times over the past 40 years, and there is never a more impactful moment for me than when they run through all or some of Tommy and finish with this passage, gaining momentum, urgency and intensity with each repeat.  I think it still gets even better after this, but this is definitely some of the best music the Who ever produced.

     A double-dose of funk, we move today from the land of jambalaya to the political hotbed of the Bay Area for our first encounter with Sly and the Family Stone.  Today’s album, “Stand!”, is a politically charged and powerful collection of hit singles and experimental tracks, and is rated as the 6^th greatest funk album of all time by digitaldreamdoors.com.

     Sly and the Family Stone elevated the sound of funk to a much higher level, and represented one of the first major acts in America with a racially integrated lineup and male and female members.  The first track, the title track “Stand!”, kicks this album off in an anthemic manner, and the free jam that is “I Want to Take You Higher” continues to turn up the heat, musically and socially.  I have always most freely associated Sly Stone with the song “Everyday People”, yet another fun AND relevant song, that is the centerpiece of this album.

     From a 2 minute masterpiece hit single, we move into “Sex Machine”, which is not the song by James Brown.  It is a 13 minute jam based on a single five note riff.  As redundant as it may seem, it is highly infectious and I was surprised how much I liked it.  The album then ends with “You Can Make It If You Try”, another upbeat song of hope from this funk powerhouse.

     This is a great album, and I’m honestly surprised this album isn’t on the Top 500 list from Rolling Stone.  There is a lot to love here, and back to back with the Meters on my list, a perfect double dose of funk.

     One of the greatest gifts I have been given in my musical life was the fact that my parents moved to New Orleans in 1986.  Through a random sequence of friends and events, I found myself one night at Tipitina’s music club in uptown New Orleans, and my musical fascination has never been the same.  Today we listen to the self-titled debut album of The Meters.

     Formed in the mid to late 1960s, the Meters started as a four-person act featuring Zigaboo Modeliste on drums, George Porter Jr. on bass, Leo Nocentelli on guitar, and the one and only “Poppa Funk” on keyboards.  This first album is effectively an entirely instrumental album, although Neville and Modeliste would eventually add lead vocals as well.  I just can’t describe how deliciously funky this first album is, just a perfect groove, song after song.  I know that New Orleans is famous for a wide variety of sounds, perhaps most famously Dixieland jazz, but this slice of uptown funk will always be my center of gravity in the Big Easy.  As many of you know, Neville eventually branched off to form a band with his three brothers, Charles, Aaron and Cyril, and they had a much more diversified sound, but it was always the beat and sound of Poppa Funk that kept me coming back.  “Cissy Strut”, the first song on the album is probably the most recognized, but each song that follows is just as good, in my opinion.  “Here Comes the Meter Man”, “Cardova”, Live Wire”… the funk just keeps coming, and also sets the stage for second generation band Dumpstaphunk, featuring sons of Art and Aaron Neville.

     This is perfect background and foreground music for just about any activity you enjoy, and the instrumental style allows you to focus and concentrate on their collective musicality.  It is an absolute travesty how under-appreciated the Meters are to this day, and a joke they are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Funk music is a favorite of mine, and it varies wildly by region across America, but I will put the Meters up against any funk band of any era, any day.  They are just that good.

     Going from an album I have listened to hundreds of times to an album I had never previously heard, today I listened to “Dusty in Memphis”, by British pop and soul singer Dusty Springfield.  Days like this make this entire process so fulfilling, hearing a new sound that I had somehow previously overlooked.  This album is rated #83 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Album of All Time.

     One of my all-time favorite female singers is Harriet Wheeler from The Sundays.  She is decidedly and

 profoundly British as she sings. Good or not, Dusty Springfield sounds completely American on this collection, as she immerses herself in a mix of country and soul songs that are as equally American, featuring legendary songwriters such as Randy Newman, Carole King, and even Burt Bacharach.  Her biggest hit from the album was “Son of a Preacher Man”, and it is probably my favorite song on the album.  I also love “Breakfast in Bed”, “Just a Little Lovin’”, “Don’t Forget About Me”, and “I Can’t Make it Alone”.

     The entire album is an easy and warm listen, and will be adding several of these tunes to my master playlist.  After she died too young at 59 from breast cancer, Elton John said of her, “She is my favorite white singer of all time, every song she made her own”.  Well said, Elton…

     I have been tracking this day for a long time in this countdown.  As we enter 1969, we reach the debut album of Led Zeppelin.  As you will quickly learn from my extensive thoughts, Led Zeppelin sits at the very top of my list of all-time favorite artists.  That doesn’t mean I think they were perfect, or that I loved every song they made, but at their peak, I just don’t believe any other band has ever rocked with the impact, intensity, diversity, creativity and consistently high musical talent as Led Zeppelin.  This first album, recorded in just 30 hours, roughly 3 months after Jimmy Page formed the band, has many examples of them at their early and dominant peak.  This album is rated #101 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and naturally, I would probably rate it notably higher.

     After Jimmy Page was left to pick up the pieces following the dissolution of the Yardbirds, he tapped into his extensive studio experience, including the sessions with Jeff Beck, inviting bassist/keyboardist and everything else-ist John Paul Jones to join his band.  His search for a vocalist hit several dead-ends before he followed a tip to see Robert Plant perform.  He was immediately enthralled, and listened closely to Plant’s recommendation to add drummer John Bonham.

     When people ask me why I rate Led Zeppelin so favorably, it comes down to best-of-brand expertise each of the four members brought to the group.  Centered around Page, his abilities to create unique riffs and maximize the sound through remarkable production and skill was a game-changer for rock of this intensity.  In his earliest days, the range and vocal power of Plant was unparalleled in the rock arena, before overuse, smoking and otherwise minimal caution robbed him of his high-end range.  John Paul Jones is one of the most diversely talented members of any band, who brought not only bass and keyboards to the group, but also provided effective arranging skills and he also played the mandolin, mellotron, bongos, recorder, and anything else necessary to compliment Page’s guitar.  If that isn’t enough, the real discriminator in my opinion, is the drumming of John Henry Bonham.  With most bands, drums are a needed support function that occasionally surprise with the unexpected fill or beat, but with Led Zeppelin that was a regular occurrence.  Based on his talents and also attributable to Page’s extraordinary skills as a producer, there just isn’t any other band that sounds like Led Zeppelin.  Many have tried, but nobody can match up to that lineup.

     On this first album, Page and the band leaned heavily on blues standards (two songs credited to Willie Dixon), and as many know, the band was absolutely reckless and irresponsible with some of the words and music they claimed as their own in other songs.  Nothing to celebrate, and they have subsequently updated several credits to properly credit sources, but this still remains one of the few meaningful blemishes on their legacy.  That being said, for songs original or covered, borrowed or invented, they took almost every song on this album to a level not reached before.  Just compare the musical quality and production quality of this album to Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”.  That album, while influential, is dated with its recording quality and caliber of performance.  The best songs on this album sound as if they were recorded yesterday, and done so at the highest level.

     The first song on the first album is “Good Times, Bad Times”, and right there in two minutes and forty-six seconds, you get a perfect synapses of their excellence.  Opening with Page’s power chords and riffs, he is quickly joined by the omnipresent bass line, remarkably clear and powerful vocals, and a drum performance that is universally celebrated to this day.  They then go into a remake of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, a mostly acoustic performance that Plant still uses often to open his current solo concerts.

     They then take their turn with Dixon’s “You Shook Me”, which is interesting when you consider that Jones had just recorded it recently with the Jeff Beck band as well.  The hammering impact of the four-part rhythm (guitar, bass, organ and drum) are complimented by Plant at his best, including an excellent harmonica solo.  Side one ends with their studio version of iconic track “Dazed and Confused”.  Another of Led Zeppelin’s biggest weaknesses was to be excessive, self-indulgent and somewhat repetitive with their live material, particularly in their later years.  This version has none of that… it is tight, crisp, incredibly powerful once again with one of Page’s best solos ever recorded.

     Side two opens with Jones on organ and another great performance from Plant on “Your Time is Gonna Come”.  I have never loved the next song, a Page acoustic instrumental, “Black Mountain Side”.  I find it rather redundant and just not a terribly appealing hook.  The last 3 songs finish strong, with another short and tight hard rocker, “Communication Breakdown”, another Dixon blues number “I Can’t Quit You Babe”, which I like but not as much as “You Shook Me”, and then concluding with “How Many More Times” which is essentially several uncredited and borrowed blues songs stitched together, albeit remarkable in its final state.

     So yeah… I pretty much love this album. John Paul Jones once pointed to this album as the simplest and best representation of what the four of them were capable together.  They first rehearsed together in early July, and by mid-October, they had this album recorded and were beginning to perform live sets.  The rock and roll world, and ultimately my own appreciation for music, would never be the same.

     Time for another compilation album, this time from Motown legends the Temptations.  A five man act that has experienced a decent amount of turnover over the years, their prime run of hits came in the mid to late 1960s, although they continue to release and perform even to this day.  The album that was selected was “Anthology”, which was #365 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  It is also #6 on the digitaldreamdoor.com Top 10 Soul Albums of All Time.  I couldn’t find this exact album on my streaming service, so I went with a comparable greatest hits collection.

     Like the other dominant forces of Motown such as Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Four Tops, and many others, the Temptations were a hit factory during their run.  “The Way You Do The Things You Do”, “My Girl”, “Get Ready”, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”, “Just My Imagination” and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” are just some of the most notable songs from these legends.  Not only were each of these songs massively successful in their own right, they fueled many successful cover versions that are just as recognizable now. 

     This album rolls into the 1970s as the Temptations evolved their sound to a more contemporary, funk-based sound with the civil commentary “Ball of Confusion”.  The funk just keeps on coming with “Shakey Ground”, keeping the Temptations relevant for many more years.  Their run of hits measures up against any of the Motown legends, and I certainly consider much of this collection worthy adds to my master play list.

     As we get closer to turning the page to 1969, another historic year for music in America and around the world, I find myself again surprised to learn what was the #1 selling album for 1969.  While we have moved past (for now) film or musical soundtracks, I was still expecting this might be the year one of the legendary acts who released albums in ’69 might claim this prize.  In a more sudden burst of fame and success, Iron Butterfly claims the title with their landmark release, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”.

     We will get to the title track soon enough, but let’s discuss the rest of the album first.  As I listened to it, I hear an eclectic mix that sounds like 1/3^rd Steppenwolf, 1/3^rd Deep Purple, and on a relatively upbeat happy tune like “Flowers and Beads”, which is my favorite song besides the obvious headliner, 1/3^rd the Lovin’ Spoonful.  Through this album, you hear a deeper, darker and heavier tone that lays another key brick in the foundation that would ultimately evolve into what we now call heavy metal.  The first five songs are somewhat nondescript in their style and sound, but they do provide a unique blend, containing overtly heavy riffs smashed in with melody and harmony.

     The album only has six songs, and gets more intense as it builds, with the iconic conclusion being the full 17-minute version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, the early metal and jam band classic.  Shortened to less than 3 minutes when released as a single, the album version, which makes a play on the biblical origin of Adam with Eve in The Garden of Eden, this song brings all you would expect in a track of this length.  Layers of psychedelia, experimental guitar, drum solos and an overarching guitar riff, complete with Doug Ingle’s ominous and haunting deep voice.  I had never previously listened to the full version of this song, at least that I can recall, and while I may not again, its influence on the rock music evolution is quite apparent, and was clearly a huge commercial success at its peak.

     No matter what Paul McCartney thought he had recaptured with “Helter Skelter”, bands continued to play louder, heavier, and longer than ever before.  Iron Butterfly’s success was brief and since then, it has been a continuous rotation of people in and out of the band.  However, for 1969, in terms of album sales alone, they ruled the day.