What are you listening to?

[Savonarola]

Alexander "Skip" Spence - Oar (1969)

San Francisco's answer to Syd Barrett, Skip Spence was the original guitarist of Quicksilver Messenger Service, original drummer of Jefferson Airplane and founding member of Moby Grape.  Like Barrett he suffered mental health issues (most likely exacerbated by drug use) and like Barrett he had a brief solo career and then dropped out of the limelight for good.  This album is good, but it sounds incredibly burnt out.  Spence is the only musician on the album; so the compositions are a bit sparse (or at least as compared to what you'd expect from the bands he head been.)  Allegedly it was Columbia's lowest selling record at the time of release.

[Jacob]

Listening to a bit of Teresa Teng recently.

[The Minsky Moment]

Bokani Dyer, Emancipate the Story (2011)

South Africa was pretty big in the jazz world in the 60s and 70s, led by Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim, among others.  There was been a significant revival in the past decade led by young artists like Dyer, in his 20s when this album came out.  There are some consciously "African" sounds here, as on the track "African Piano" (actually Fender Rhodes), but the predominant sound is American post-bop and the predominant influences are mid-late Miles Davis and McCoy Tyner. Nothing wrong with that though and Dyer's group is on the ball.

[Savonarola]

The Who - Tommy (1969)

Pretentious, bombastic and nonsensical; all the things The Who did best.   

Not the first rock opera ("SF Sorrow" by The Pretty Things was released a year earlier) and The Who had been working towards longer song stories for a while ("A Quick One," "Rael"); still this one is different from anything that came before - longer, louder and better.  The story is half-baked (the same should be said for "SF Sorrow"), but the singles are great as are the solos and jams (well, at least those not involving a French horn.)  I think "Eyesight to the Blind" is the underappreciated masterpiece on the album as they took a Sonny Boy Williamson II twelve bar blues standard and turned it into a raucous piece (Keith's maniacal drumming, as usual, was their secret weapon).  "The Acid Queen," on the other hand, is something of a disappointment after hearing the Tina Turner version.

[Josephus]

The Who - Tommy (1969)

Pretentious, bombastic and nonsensical; all the things The Who did best.   

Not the first rock opera ("SF Sorrow" by The Pretty Things was released a year earlier) and The Who had been working towards longer song stories for a while ("A Quick One," "Rael"); still this one is different from anything that came before - longer, louder and better.  The story is half-baked (the same should be said for "SF Sorrow"), but the singles are great as are the solos and jams (well, at least those not involving a French horn.)  I think "Eyesight to the Blind" is the underappreciated masterpiece on the album as they took a Sonny Boy Williamson II twelve bar blues standard and turned it into a raucous piece (Keith's maniacal drumming, as usual, was their secret weapon).  "The Acid Queen," on the other hand, is something of a disappointment after hearing the Tina Turner version.

One of the first "rock" records I ever picked up. Saw it in my library, took it home, and taped it. I still have that old tape. 

I"m not a huge Who fan, but I like this one.

[Admiral Yi]

Entwhistle's incredibly dense bass was always their secret weapon.

[Savonarola]

Entwhistle's incredibly dense bass was always their secret weapon.

Not his French horn virtuosity?   

Well each to his own.  The Ox was an incredible musician (and, IMO an under-appreciated songwriter); but I think the drums that allowed The Who to rock as hard as they did (especially since they were never the same band without Moon.)

[Admiral Yi]

Any of their big hits written by him?

I say he's the secret weapon because it's so hard for a three piece band not to sound garage-y.  Entwhistle filled up all those empty spaces.

[The Minsky Moment]

They may not have been the same band after Moon but Moon's contribution was more to the band's showmanship then his sloppy drumming.  There's no great secret about The Who; Townsend wrote most of the material, supplied much of the pretension, and contributed the iconic guitar riffs; the band declined when he lost his mojo by the mid-70s.

[Savonarola]

Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis (1969)

The Reverend Billy Wurlitzer has a bit where he explains that if the song is about an older relative said relative is going to die by the end of the song.  You can tell they're about to die when either the song has a breakdown or shifts key.  If you see the song performed live you should shout out "Asshole" at the singer for killing his or her relative.  I was reminded of this when listening to "Oh Mama Liked the Roses."



Elvis's comeback album (he had been doing soundtracks since getting back from the army) and the best of the second part of his career.  (Arguably the best in his career; though I prefer 1956's Elvis.)  "In the Ghetto" was the big hit off the album, but "Suspicious Minds" and "Kentucky Rain" were recorded in the same sessions.  At that time most of his recent albums had been recorded in Hollywood; this was recorded in Memphis and he worked with "The Memphis Boys" as his backup band creating a country-soul sound (if anyone could do it Elvis could.)

"In the Ghetto" (a Mac Davis composition) was considered a controversial song at the time; and Elvis was hesitant to record it for fear that it would alienate some of his audience. 

[Savonarola]

Roberta Flack - First Take (1969)

She put together quite a lineup for her debut album; herself on piano, John Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass and Ray Lucas on drums.  Given Pizzarelli and Carter it's probably not much of a surprise that this is much more a jazz album than soul (except for the opening track; a blistering version of the protest song "Compared to What.")  She sounds like she wants to be Sarah Vaughan on most of the tracks here; it's not bad, but it's not what she does best.

[The Brain]

Roberta Flack - First Take (1969)

She put together quite a lineup for her debut album; herself on piano, John Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass and Ray Lucas on drums.  Given Pizzarelli and Carter it's probably not much of a surprise that this is much more a jazz album than soul (except for the opening track; a blistering version of the protest song "Compared to What.")  She sounds like she wants to be Sarah Vaughan on most of the tracks here; it's not bad, but it's not what she does best.

Any Lori Lieberman covers?

[Savonarola]

Roberta Flack - First Take (1969)

She put together quite a lineup for her debut album; herself on piano, John Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass and Ray Lucas on drums.  Given Pizzarelli and Carter it's probably not much of a surprise that this is much more a jazz album than soul (except for the opening track; a blistering version of the protest song "Compared to What.")  She sounds like she wants to be Sarah Vaughan on most of the tracks here; it's not bad, but it's not what she does best.

Any Lori Lieberman covers?

Those wouldn't come until later; in fact I don't think Lieberman had released her first album at that point. 

[Savonarola]

Procol Harum - A Salty Dog  (1969)

A concept album dealing with the sea (); the music ranges from blues to calypso to singer-songwriter-confessional to Memphis soul to psychedelia to proto-prog rock.  It works together surprisingly well and the songs are good throughout.  It doesn't have any of their biggest hits ("Conquistador" in case you were looking for the second hit), but that probably helps the album (at least for new listeners.)  This would be the last album with the original line up; guitarist Matthew Fisher would leave the band soon after the albums release.

[Savonarola]

Jeff Beck - Beck-Ola (1969)

This is the end of the line for the first incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group as Rod Stewart and Ron Wood would leave to form Faces out of the remainder of The Small Faces.  It's more cover heavy and has a heavier sound than "Truth."  I had said that "Truth" sounds like a alternate reality where Rod Stewart was the lead singer for Led Zeppelin.  This one sounds more like an alternate reality where Rod Stewart was the lead singer for Black Sabbath (though with a considerably more talented band) and they decided to do a bunch of Elvis covers.  It's just not all that good.