Tony's Picks - The Beach Boys

It’s all Carol’s fault.  One Sunday morning not too long ago we were watching CBS Sunday Morning, just like we do practically every Sunday morning.  I say it’s her fault because she records it on the DVR and we watch it after we get up for the day.  This particular show had a blurb on Brian Wilson.  There’s a movie out about two periods in his life called Love & Mercy.  Someday I’ll see the movie, even though I already know the story line.  Having seen the feature about the movie, it got me thinking about the bits of his music that I like.  There’s more to Brian Wilson’s music with the Beach Boys than just girls, cars, surfing, and the beach.  Long ago, I used to think “every time I hear the Beach Boys I thank God for The Beatles.”  Then I heard Pet Sounds, which Paul McCartney says heavily influenced the making of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  A handful of very personal songs from Pet Sounds are here [and without a surfing/beach/car song in sight].

California Girls [Summer Days (and Summer Nights), 1965] – Brian Wilson cites this as his favorite Beach Boys song.  Allegedly the music came to Brian Wilson after taking his first acid trip.  The Wrecking Crew is all over this one.  This is where Brian Wilson starts to rely more and more on the Wrecking Crew to make Beach Boys records while the rest of the band was on tour.

Do It Again [20/20, 1969] – After years of not singing about girls/cars/surfing/etc, here’s a back-to-basics blast of nostalgia.  Check out the funky echo delay on the drums at the beginning.  Brian Wilson said in the 20/20 liner notes that he wanted his falsetto to imitate the sound of a trumpet.  The Beach Boys’ career as a nostalgia act begins here.

Don’t Worry Baby [Shut Down Volume 2, 1964] – Here Brian Wilson channels Phil Spector’s production Be My Baby.

Please Let Me Wonder [The Beach Boys Today! 1965] – Harmonies galore!  This song just sounds great with the fat bass sound and the guitar-organ interplay.

The Warmth of the Sun [Shut Down Volume 2, 1964] – Several years ago Capitol Records released a Beach Boys compilation with the imaginative title of Beach Boys Classics, but these classics were selected by Brian Wilson himself.  Most of the tracks he selected are well-known, others not so well-known.  In the liner note for this album, he wrote that he came up with this song the night JFK was assassinated.

The Little Girl I Once Knew [Single, 1965] - I want to get Carol Kaye’s bass sound that I hear on this song.  Production on this song is the link between what started on Summer Days (and Summer Nights) and the quantum leap in production of Pet Sounds.  My only gripe about this song is Mike Love’s incessant bow-bow-bow-bow background vocals.

Wild Honey [Wild Honey, 1967] – After the über-productions of Heroes & Villains and Good Vibrations, Wild Honey sounds like a demo in comparison.  Carl Wilson sounds like he’s having a blast singing this.  I think they recorded this one in Brian Wilson’s pool.

Sail On, Sailor [Holland, 1973] – Blondie Chaplin has the lead vocal here.  Dennis Wilson had the first go at it, then Carl.  Carl wasn’t satisfied with either attempt and suggested Blondie give it a try.  It worked rather well.  Once the hook gets in your head, it’s hard to get rid of it.

Cabin Essence [SMiLE Sessions, 2011 and 20/20, 1969] – For the Beach Boys, this song written in Brian Wilson’s sandbox is as weird as it gets.  Van Dyke Parks wrote the words, and he has no idea what they mean.  No wonder Mike Love was so confused about their meaning.  There are three distinct parts – “Home on the Range”, “Who Ran the Iron Horse”, and “The Grand Coulee Dam.”  Apparently the Iron Horse bit was about the Chinese guys who worked to build the Transcontinental Railroad.  Done as a waltz, the Beach Boys chant “who ran the Iron Horse” over and over with a six-string bass played with very fuzzy tones for accompaniment.

Surf’s Up [SMiLE Sessions, 2011, & Surf’s Up, 1971] – Van Dyke Parks wrote the words for the music that was supposed to become SMiLE.  These particular lyrics are impenetrable. When Mike Love asked Parks what they meant, Parks couldn’t tell him because he claimed he was stoned when he wrote them.  It’s all stream-of-consciousness stuff.  But, in this song the phrase “Surf’s Up” is a double entendre.  Not only did it mean what it usually means [the surf is up, time to go surfing!], it also meant the era of the Beach Boys singing about surfing are over.  Brian Wilson is in full Vienna Boys Choir mode in some parts.  Soon Mike Love and the rest of the Beach Boys not named Brian Wilson lost their patience, and Brian Wilson lost his mind. 

‘Til I Die [Surf’s Up, 1971] – Brian Wilson is in a very downer mood here.  Here he meditates on his insignificance on the planet.  He’s “a cork on the ocean…a rock in a landslide…a leaf on a windy day.”  One lyric caught me by surprise with its brutal honesty – “it kills my soul” and how “I lost my way.”  For a guy with mental illness problems, these are very lucid, self-aware statements to make.

Heroes & Villains [Smiley Smile, 1967] – After all these years, I still have no idea what this one is about.  Who are the villains – the government who wanted to draft baby brother Carl to go fight in Vietnam, the record company, or the voices in Brian Wilson’s head?  All I know is the vocal bits [between the verses] over the harpsichord are very trippy.  The vocal harmonies are stunning, despite Jimi Hendrix think the group was a “psychedelic barbershop quartet.”

God Only Knows [Pet Sounds, 1966] – Carl Wilson’s finest vocal.  Brian called it a great love song, just not one sung to a person.  The multiple voices at the end of the song singing “God only knows what I’d be without you” over and over again can’t help but make one smile.

Sloop John B [Pet Sounds, 1966] – As the Beach Boys’ resident folkie, Al Jardine suggested to Brian Wilson the idea of recording this folk song.  He liked the Kingston Trio’s take on this 1927 West Indies tune and thought the Beach Boys should have a crack at it.  This has another great bass part from Carol Kaye.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice [Pet Sounds, 1966] – The opening salvo from Pet Sounds [Hal Blaine’s drums sound like a cannon shot], this has always been in my Top 5 of favorite Beach Boys songs.

Good Vibrations [Single, 1966] – Their best – ‘nuff said.

Girl Don’t Tell Me [Summer Days (and Summer Nights), 1965] – Carl Wilson’s first lead vocal, and it’s a good one.  Not only is it his vocal, he’s singing solo.  The Beach Boys, and not The Wrecking Crew, play on this track.  Listen closely and you’ll hear similarities to The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride.

Let Him Run Wild [Summer Days (and Summer Nights), 1965] - The Wrecking Crew is all over this one, too.  Phenomenal harmonies abound here.

I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times [Pet Sounds, 1966] – Brian Wilson laments that he is a misfit.  Sometimes I feel very sad…where can I turn when my fair-weather friends cop out…

I Know There’s An Answer [Pet Sounds, 1966] – But what is the question?  It began life as Hang On To Your Ego, a song with the same verses, but a different chorus. 

Caroline, No [Pet Sounds, 1966] – Brian Wilson sings solo about a sweet girl who turned bitchy.  It’s so hard to watch a sweet thing die…

Strange World [That’s Why God Made the Radio, 2012] – The best material from the final Beach Boys album comes in the last four songs, of which this one is the first.  Here, Brian marvels at the “uninvited people who’ve lost their way” while at the Santa Monica Pier, and sings to someone [presumably his wife] about how he can’t imagine life without her. Sunday morning/Skies so blue/Yo te amo/Means I love you… This would not be out of place if it was on Brian’s Lucky Old Sun album.  LA is a strange world indeed.

From There To Back Again [That’s Why God Made the Radio, 2012] – Al Jardine and Brian Wilson split lead vocal duties.  The closing suite about loneliness and aging begins here.

Pacific Coast Highway [That’s Why God Made the Radio, 2012] – As Brian Wilson drives down the PCH, he opines “Sunlight’s fading and there’s not much left to say/ My life, I’m better off alone.”

Summer’s Gone [That’s Why God Made the Radio, 2012] – Carl and Dennis Wilson are still dead – “Old friends have gone, they’ve gone their separate ways.  Summer’s gone – it’s finally sinking in.”  A reminder of Pet Sounds…

Sail On, Sailor [Live] [Live – The 50^th Anniversary Tour, 2013] – I saw a YouTube clip of this song with Brian Wilson taking the lead vocal.  I liked it very much, hence its inclusion here.  When it was first recorded in 1972 for Holland, Brian didn’t think he could do it.  Maybe he couldn’t then, but he sounds fine here. Still hard to get rid of the hook…

Led Zeppelin Remastered [Again]

In 1990, Jimmy Page remastered Led Zeppelin’s entire catalog.  A four-disc box set came that same year.  I bought it.  Some years later, the songs that didn’t make the cut for the 1990 box set were packaged in a two-CD set.  At that time, these remasters sounded much better than what had been on the market since CDs were invented.  In addition to the existing catalog, a few nuggets surfaced.  Hey, Hey, What Can I Do was finally available to those of us who weren’t old enough to buy The Immigrant Song single in 1970 [it was the B-side].  There were a couple of items from sessions at the BBC [White Summer/Black Mountain Side, Travelling Riverside Blues].  There was one song left off the first album [Baby Come On Home].  There was a hybrid mix of two John Bonham showcases [Moby Dick/Bonzo’s Montreux].  As far as unearthed goodies that hadn’t been heard before, that was it.  Given the songs were remastered once, why do it again?  Cynics would boil it down to one word: money.  And they may be right.  I gladly parted with my money to get the new remasters.  There is the lure of the “unreleased” stuff [Why didn’t this stuff come out in 1990?  Hmmm…].  All the cynicism aside, the new remasters sound great.  While the song remains the same, technology has evolved since 1990 to remove extraneous noise [and yes, boost the volume] without making the songs sound harsh and “clippy.”

I’ll forgo reviewing the albums themselves.  Take my word for it – they sound great.  My focus here will be the Companion Discs.  Inside each Led Zeppelin album is the following statement:

“The material on the companion disc presents a portal to the time to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin.  It is a selection of work in progress, with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions and new material recorded at the time.”

The Companion Discs pretty much deliver as advertised.  That said, some “alternate” versions sound exactly like the original releases, some “rough” mixes aren’t so rough.  The backing tracks without Robert Plant’s vocals are good to listen to [admit it – sometimes his vocals are annoying as Hell…].  The unearthed nuggets are hit and miss.  But all things considered, this reissue series is a Led Zeppelin completist’s dream come true.

Led Zeppelin – the entirety of the Companion Disc is a concert recorded in October 1969 at the Olympia Theatre in Paris.  Included is a fifteen-minute version of Dazed and Confused. Versions of Heartbreaker and Moby Dick [which wouldn’t be released on LZ II until later that month] are also included.  I Can’t Quit You Baby is a little longer than the version found on Coda, but it’s just as intense.  The whole show is intense and worth the purchase.

Led Zeppelin II – lots of works-in-progress contained therein.  My favorite is the instrumental mix of Thank You, which was probably still waiting for Robert Plant to write the words of his first song.  The rough mix of Ramble On is missing some vocal and guitar overdubs, but it’s the same master take.  The same can be said for What Is and What Should Never Be.  Heartbreaker has a different solo from Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones’ thunderous bass is lower in the mix.  It’s still a great piece of work.  Whole Lotta Love has some slightly different lyrics, some guitar overdubs are missing, as is a good chunk of the middle section freak-out.  Living Loving Maid is a rough mix waiting for vocals.  I feel the same way about it that I do about the finished product – meh.  The significant find on this disc is newly-discovered La-La.  This one is a guitar/organ instrumental, with the organ leading the song.  Jimmy Page sounds like he’s still playing his Telecaster rather than his Les Paul, and adds some freaked-out wah-wah for coloring – very enjoyable.

Led Zeppelin III – two goodies are on the Companion Disc.  Jennings Farm Blues is an electric instrumental version of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.  Apparently they’d done a bit of work on it since it has some guitar overdubs.  Key To The Highway/Trouble In Mind was recorded as an acoustic country blues, the same way they had done Hats Off To (Roy) Harper.  They distorted Plant’s voice the same way as well.  There are instrumental takes [BTW, I like instrumental takes] of Out On The Tiles [titled Bathroom Sound] and Friends.  This version of Friends doesn’t have the drone segue to Celebration Day.

Led Zeppelin IV – there are no previously-unreleased songs on this Companion Disc.  The Sunset Sound mix of Stairway to Heaven has an electric piano higher in the mix, but the drums got messed up.  Recording engineer Andy Johns once said the Sunset Sound mixes being inferior to what was accomplished in England.  There are instrumental versions of two songs – Going to California and The Battle Of Evermore.  The latter is about 90 seconds shorter than the vocal version.  The versions of Black Dog, Rock and Roll and Misty Mountain Hop are the same takes we’ve known for 44 years, minus some guitar overdubs.  When the Levee Breaks is a different mix of the same take.  To these ears it sounds as good as the mix released in 1971.  

Houses of the Holy – The extras on this album are very worthy of the money spent.  The Song Remains the Same is presented here without vocals.  For this song that is a major plus.  The vocals from the original release have always made me wish this was the instrumental that Jimmy Page had intended it to be.  Without the vocals one can hear all the different guitar parts [of which there are many] that Page laid down.  This mix emphasizes Jimmy Page’s abilities as an orchestrator of many guitar parts – a major strength for him as a producer.  This was a sign of things to come on Achilles Last Stand, recorded three years later for Presence.  Like The Song Remains the Same, No Quarter gets the instrumental treatment.  Not all of the guitar overdubs of the finished product are present.  The rough mixes for Over the Hills and Far Way and The Crunge are just that – rough.  They were best used as a reference only.  On the other hand, the rough mixes for Dancing Days and The Ocean are actually better sounding [to my ears] than what got released in 1973.  These mixes sound like they were already finished.  The drums in Dancing Days pack more of a wallop [always a good thing on a Zeppelin release], and John Paul Jones’ keyboards are lower in the mix.  John Bonham’s count in for The Ocean [“We’ve done four already and now we’re steady and then they went ‘one-two-three-four’”] is missing from the working mix, and Plant’s vocals are slightly different.  Other than that, the differences between what was released and the “rough mix” are imperceptible.  The differences between the released version of The Rain Song and the “Mix Minus Piano” are negligible.  The piano is still there, but the channels are switched.  

Physical Graffiti – The original album already had some outtakes from other albums to round out the double LP.  The songs they recorded in 1974 were too much material for a single album but not enough for a double album, hence the addition of the outtakes.  So I didn’t expect much in the way of previously-unheard songs.  There was one song [the long-lost Swan Song] that supposedly never got recorded by Led Zeppelin [but has to be a Page demo somewhere] but ended up as Midnight Moonlight on The Firm’s eponymous album.  That song isn’t here.  There are different versions of seven songs that were released in 1975.  Five of them [Brandy & Coke (aka Trampled Under Foot), In My Time of Dying, Houses of the Holy, Boogie With Stu and Driving Through Kashmir] sound like they’re almost finished.  Houses of the Holy is different from the other rough mixes in the reissue series.  Instead of needing more overdubs, Zeppelin took stuff away from this one.  This version had too much cowbell [and tambourine], and the vocals were pared back.  Driving Through Kashmir is labeled a “rough orchestral mix.”  Maybe Jimmy Page hears something that I don’t, but the “rough” mix sounds exactly like the finished product to me.  Brandy & Coke sounds like the same take as the finished product, only the clavinet is pushed farther forward in the mix.  Robert Plant’s vocals can actually be understood.  Some guitar parts are missing.  Boogie With Stu is another Sunset Sound mix.  The difference is there is more mandolin here than what got released.  Since this song was originally an outtake from LZ IV before it found a home on Physical Graffiti, is it technically an outtake from Physical Graffiti?  I digress…  The very early versions of In the Light [called Everybody Makes It Through here] and Sick Again give insight to how the band created and changed their songs while in the studio.

Presence – the Companion Disc contains mostly works-in-progress, some of which are closer to completion than others.  10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod) is a previously-unreleased piano-driven instrumental [it has guitar and drums too].  My favorite alternate version of Presence songs is Royal Orleans – John Bonham sings!  He sings the same lyrics that Robert Plant wrote, it just sounds funnier.  I like it – a lot!  They should have left the Plant version in the can.

In Through the Out Door – the Companion Disc contains all works-in-progress.  But unlike the finished product, you can actually understand what Robert Plant sings.

Coda – Coda was a contractual obligation for Led Zeppelin in 1982, a way for them to release stuff that until then hadn’t seen the light of day.  Included were three songs left over from the In Through the Out Door sessions [Ozone Baby, Darlene, and Wearing And Tearing], one outtake from Houses of the Holy [Walter’s Walk], one outtake from LZ III [Poor Tom], a couple of songs from the LZ II era [We’re Gonna Groove, I Can’t Quit You Baby], and one drums-only track for John Bonham [Bonzo’s Montreux].  As it was in 1982, so it is again in 2015.  Coda is the place to find the hitherto hard-to-find stuff from the vault.  Apparently the vault got a lot bigger between 1982 and 2015 because there are two Companion Discs to go with what was advertised at the time as the rest of release-quality Led Zeppelin stuff.  Unlike the previous eight albums, Coda has two Companion Audio discs [Caveat Emptor – the contents of both discs could have easily fit onto one disc with room to spare.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.].

There are extras from each of the first six Zeppelin albums, and there are some orphaned tracks [those not recorded for a specific album] as well.  How does it break down by album?

LZ – Baby Come On Home, Sugar Mama

LZ II – Bring It On Home [Rough Mix]

LZ III – Hey, Hey, What Can I Do, St. Tristan's Sword (Rough Mix), Poor Tom [Instrumental]

LZ IV - If It Keeps on Raining [When the Levee Breaks Rough Mix]

HOTH - Walter's Walk (Rough Mix)

Physical Graffiti - Desire ("The Wanton Song") (Rough Mix), Everybody Makes It Through ("In the Light") (Rough Mix)

Loose Tracks - Four Hands ("Four Sticks") (Bombay Orchestra), Friends (Bombay Orchestra), Travelling Riverside Blues [BBC Session][Live], Bonzo's Montreux [Mix Construction in Progress], We're Gonna Groove [Alternate Mix]

When I first picked up the expanded version of Led Zeppelin III, I was disappointed to see that Hey, Hey, What Can I Do was not on the track list.  It’s inclusion on the extended Coda rectified what I thought was an error.  Maybe Jimmy Page intended it’s inclusion on Coda all along.  There are three jewels on Coda.  I never knew of the existence of St. Tristan's Sword, but was glad to hear Zeppelin jam in the studio as a three-piece.  Given the extra tracks on the expanded LZ III [and Poor Tom from the original Coda], one can see the LZ III period was an especially creative one.  The other two jewels are Four Hands ("Four Sticks") and Friends, both recorded with the Bombay Orchestra in 1972.  These two acoustic tracks with the Indian musicians hint at the “Un-Leddded” direction that was to come for Jimmy Page and Robert Plant some 22 years later.  The blueprint for that project is right here.

Was it worth it to spend the money for the remastered albums and their companion discs?  For me it was, but for those who aren’t completists and only want some of the unearthed stuff, I recommend the following:  Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy, and Coda. 

Chris Squire - RIP

Ah, the college years…that’s when I started to get serious about breaking out of my Beatles comfort zone.  When I was a freshman at the University of Colorado [Boulder], one of the guys who lived next door played lots of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.  At that time all I knew about Yes was Roundabout. He had the triple live album Yessongs [1973] and he loaned it to me as a primer.  On the plus side the drummer was ok, and the guitarist and keyboardist sounded great.  On the minus side the vocalist sounded like a bit like a Vienna choirboy twerp [he still does].  Given all these things, what really grabbed my attention was the bass guitarist, Chris Squire.  He had a big sound.  I like big bass sounds.  As there was more playing than there was singing, the plusses outweighed the minuses.  I noticed in the liner notes that Squire was mentioned often as one of the songwriters.  How could that be in a band with Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman, both talented musicians that surely had a wealth of musical ideas?  But there it was, in black and white.  I wanted to check out who these guys were.

Of my Top 5 rock bass guitarists, three of them are now dead – first John Entwistle [#1 – died 2002], then Jack Bruce [#2 – died 2014], and now Chris Squire [#3] last week.  Yes isn’t a band that is in my regular rotation.  Progressive rock is an acquired taste, and a lot of times it sits quietly in my musical closet.  If not for their vocalist [pick one, any one], I’d probably listen to Yes more often.  Every now and then I take Yes out for a spin.  I always marvel that in a band of virtuosos [Steve Howe – guitar, Rick Wakeman – keyboards] Chris Squire managed to make himself heard.  Given the musical company he kept, that’s quite an achievement.  Chris Squire was the one constant in the ever-changing Yes universe [six keyboardists, four lead singers, three guitarists, and two drummers, but only one bassist].  It is fitting that as that one constant, the bass guitarist with the unique Rickenbacker 4001/Rotosound strings sound was the anchor of a band that had many flights of fancy [Tales of Topographic Oceans, anyone?].  When Yes plays without him in August this year, it will be the first time in the 45-year history of the band that they’ve played without him.

Why the bass:  I found an interview with Chris Squire from years ago.  I’ll let him tell the story – “I had buddy at school who was a trained classical guitar player, a guy called John Wheatley. We decided we would start a band together. He got an electric guitar and he just said to me, ‘You’re tall and you’ve got big hands. You should play bass.’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll be the bass player, then.’”  Yeah, he was big.  He made a Rickenbacker bass look almost like a regular guitar in his hands.

The sound:  Combine the melodicism of Paul McCartney, the aggression of Jack Bruce, and the tone of John Entwistle, and you have Chris Squire.  He confessed he started using a Rickenbacker bass with Rotosound strings because that’s what John Entwistle did.  He rewired his RM1999 into stereo.  The signals from the bass and treble pick-ups each went into separate amplifiers. The signal from the bass pick-up went to a bass amp, and the signal from the treble pick-up went to a guitar amp.  This gave him a brighter high-end while maintaining the growl of the low end.  John Entwistle did something similar to get his sound.

Tony’s Favorite Chris Squire Moments:

There are many great recorded moments that captured Chris Squire’s brilliance, but I will choose only a handful to illustrate:

Siberian Khatru [Close to the Edge – 1972]

After Yes let each of the members explore solo pieces on Fragile, it was time for them to explore longer song forms.  There were two songs over ten minutes on Fragile [South Side of the Sky and Heart of the Sunrise]. But the band wanted to push the envelope further.  They decided on an album where one song takes an entire side [Close to the Edge], and two smaller compositions on the flip side.  The first of the two compositions [And You and I], was a delicate, dare I say “pretty song” with Steve’s Howe’s acoustic guitars and Rick Wakeman’s magisterial Mellotron doing the heavy lifting.  But it leaves one ill-prepared for what was to come next – Siberian Khatru.  To put it plainly, Siberian Khatru is a healthy kick in the ass the shows that despite all its pomposity, Yes was still a rock band that could kick serious ass when it wanted to.  All the musicians are superb on this yet it is Squire's bass that is a standout.  Siberian Khatru has an intense organ riff running through the opening, Howe giving us a superb guitar performance, and Squire's bass driving the piece.  Squire lays down some excellent bass, weaving in and out of Wakeman's harpsichord, and not to mention the superb guitar solo.  This is my favorite Yes song, and it is quite obvious why the band chose this song to open many shows.  It’s very intense stuff.

Roundabout [Fragile, 1972]

By far Yes’ most popular song, this is the gateway drug to all things Yes.  Steve Howe’s classical guitar intro is unmistakable, and when he’s finished with his intro, the rest of the band barges in, with Chris Squire’s spidery bass playing a countermelody to Steve Howe’s chord work.  When Steve Howe went back to Asia years ago, the band decided they would play one song from each of the band member’s past.  For Steve Howe, the song was Roundabout.  John Wetton had the unenviable task of both singing and playing Chris Squire’s bass parts.  Wetton said it was a nightmare to do but he pulled it off.  Playing the bass part is hard enough without having to sing.  Like Siberian Khatru, Roundabout has a bass part with immense driving power.  This is the song where I first heard Chris Squire’s sound.  It was fast, it was trebly, and it didn’t get in anybody else’s way.  He could keep the time while still being melodic, and when he needed to he could keep up with Steve Howe.  I like that in bass guitarists.  This song is probably Chris Squire at his best.

Heart of the Sunrise [Fragile, 1972]

In the early Seventies, this song would follow Siberian Khatru in the set list.  But instead of one constant barrage of hyperactivity, Heart of the Sunrise has a fast-slow, fast-slow quality to it.  During the fast parts, Chris Squire keeps up with Steve Howe note-for-note.  In some of the slow parts, Squire plays the melody while Wakeman lays a Melltron over the song like a thick carpet while Howe darts in and out of the mix.

Sound Chaser [Relayer – 1974]

Tales of Topograhic Oceans [1973] was a four-sided exercise in over-indulgence – one song per side.  It was a Jon Anderson/Steve Howe trip, with the other three members along for the ride.  We didn’t hear much from Chris Squire.  One can hear Squire going along with the flow, but there was nothing outstanding bass-wise in the tracks contained therein.  Rick Wakeman claims he was so bored making the album that he spent more time in the bar than he did in the studio.  He was able to find time to lay down synthesizer track for Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album [they were recording next door].  After completion of the album and the tour that followed, Rick Wakeman bailed from Yes.  Replacing him was Swiss-born Patrick Moraz [later of Moody Blues fame].  With Tales of Topograhic Oceans out of their system, Yes returned to the Close to the Edge format – a single song on one side, two shorter songs on the other.  The B side of the album shows Howe and Squire's manic display of dexterity and virtuosity on Sound Chaser. Sound Chaser is the closest Yes ever got to sounding like jazz fusion. Moraz uses a lot of synthesizer here to good effect. The tempo keeps changing throughout the whole song. Squire does some of his best bass playing.  Sound Chaser contains some brilliant bass work from Squire. 

Does It Really Happen? [Drama – 1980]

Drama was the first album without Jon Anderson.  Rick Wakeman was gone, too.  Drama’s predecessor, Tormato [1978] sounded like a tired band on its last legs.  It had its moments, but you had to look hard for them [Don’t Kill the Whale, Onward].  They were replaced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes [aka The Buggles] respectively.  As seen through the hindsight of 35 years, Drama is an underrated album.  Geoff Downes wasn’t a virtuoso like Rick Wakeman, but not many people are.  He fit into the Yes sound.  Trevor Horn sounded somewhat like Jon Anderson.  When recording his own songs in the studio, he sounded fine.  It was on the road where he tried to sing Jon Anderson’s songs that he ran into trouble.  After Yes finished their tour obligations for Drama, the band called it a day.  But that is not to say that Drama is a bad record – quite the contrary it’s pretty good, and a definite improvement over Tormato.  There are at least three nuggets on Drama – the opener Machine Messiah, Tempus Fugit, and my favorite Does It Really Happen?  Why is it my Drama favorite?  Chris Squire’s bass is the reason.  The song starts with a monster bass riff that sets the pace.  This was not to be a leisurely Yes song.  This one is more along the lines of Siberian Khatru.  The stringed instruments [guitar and bass] drive this song rather than the keyboards.  The centerpiece of the song is Chris Squire’s Rickenbacker.

Tributes to Chris Squire have poured into Yes’ website.  Of all those tributes I’ll print only one that pretty much says it all:

“Simply put, Chris Squire was one of the greatest rock bassists of all time.”

Geddy Lee, Rush

Great Rock Sounds

There are great sounds in rock and roll.  They could be the unique sounds of a certain bands. Some guitarists have a unique sound that when you hear the first few notes that are played, you know immediately who it is.  There’s the cliché that some singers would sound great if they “sing the phonebook.”  There are the collection of sounds that we call songs that define the bands that play them.  Last night I did a stream-of-consciousness thing.  I looked at my CD collection and just wondered “out of all this, what really sounds ‘cool’”?  Here’s what I came up with, in no particular order.

1.  Jon Lord's Hammond organ through a Marshall stack

2.  The twin guitars of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts

3.  Jack Bruce's distorted bass

4.  John Entwistle's trebly bass

5.  Beatles harmonies

6.  Tony Iommi's riffs

7.  Keith Richards' 5-string Telecaster tuned to Open G

8.  Gregg Allman singing...anything

9.  David Gilmour's guitar tones from The Wall (esp. Hey You and Comfortably Numb)

10.  Pete Townshend's power chords, esp. Who's Next and Quadrpohenia

11.  Eric Clapton's "Woman Tone"

12.  Johnny Winter's slide [Dust My Broom]

13.  Jimi Hendrix's wah-wah [Voodoo Child (Slight Return)]

14.  Malcolm Young's rhythm guitar

15.  John Lennon singing, esp. "Twist and Shout" and "Yer Blues"

16.  The Mellotron

17.  SRV's massive guitar tone

18.  Creedence

19.  Paul Rodgers singing...anything

20.  Michael Schenker guitar solos

21.  Lemmy Kilmister's Rickenbacker bass and "Murder One"

22.  George Harrison's guitar and a Leslie rotating speaker

23.  Joe Walsh's talk box guitar on "Rocky Mountain Way"

24.  Jimmy Page's acoustic guitars all over Led Zeppelin III

25.  Billy Gibbons - tone, taste & tenacity

26.  John Bonham's drums, esp. "When the Levee Breaks"

27.  Ray Manzarek

28.  Ronnie James Dio...anytime

29.  Ian Gillan 1969-73

30.  Whipping Post

31.  Frank Zappa - Dumb All Over [live]

32.  Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord trading solos

33.  The opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night"

34.  Byrds harmonies

35.  Tomorrow Never Knows

36.  Santana 1969-72

37.  Neil Young's Old Black

38.  Garth Hudson's intro to "Chest Fever"

39.  Levon Helm

40.  Gregg Allman’s Hammond B-3

41.  Los Lobos

What are your great rock sounds?

Waylon Jennings - Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got out of Hand

This song [which appears on the album I’ve Always Been Crazy] was completely written and inspired by Waylon Jennings.  It’s also a true story…

After Waylon Jennings hit the big time he traded amphetamines for cocaine.  It was a serious habit - a $1500/day habit.  More than once he pulled a Keith Richards and stayed awake for seven days straight.  His habit was well-known, and it attracted the attention of the DEA.  They got wind of a package that was sent to him from New York.  He was in Nashville recording some music for a Hank Williams, Jr. album.  Evidently an individual working in Neil Reshen’s office [Waylon’s manager at the time] was trying to curry favor with Waylon and sent him an unsolicited package of cocaine.  Within minutes of the package’s arrival, the DEA paid a visit to Waylon in the recording studio.  They knew about the package and followed it to the recording studio.

To hear Waylon tell the story [go to YouTube to hear him or read his autobiography Waylon], Richie Albright [his drummer and the producer of this particular session] was in the control room while Waylon was in the studio.  Waylon had received the package but didn’t open it, and when he saw the DEA in the control room, he threw the package over his shoulder and it got stuck under one of the baseboards on the other side of the studio.  All the while this was going on, Richie had the talk-back button pushed and Waylon could hear everything that was said [but the agents couldn’t see Waylon].  Waylon then came into the control room and read the warrant for his arrest and the search warrants.  The search warrant was screwed up – it allowed the DEA to search Waylon’s Nashville office, but not the recording studio.  The DEA couldn’t go in there.

While Waylon was engaged with the DEA agents, Richie went into the studio under the pretext of moving around some baffles.  But what he really did was find the cocaine and take it to the bathroom.  Before everyone knew it, the toilet flushed for all to hear.  One of the DEA agents got really pissed and asked where the cocaine was.  Waylon responded “if it ever was here it ain’t here no more.” 

Waylon was charged with possession of cocaine, but the charges were dropped because of “lack of evidence.”  But he got a song out of it, one that he used to open many shows.  It has his trademark thumping bass, four-on-the-floor driving rhythm that works very well as a show opener.  He often followed with with JJ Cale’s Clyde, a song about a bass-playing dog – it was a good one-two punch [see video].  Until Waylon Jennings came along, country music didn’t sound like this.  His lawyer freaked out because he heard the song and thought it was a “confession.”  Waylon didn’t care…

I'm for the law and order the way that it should be
This song's about the night they spent protecting you from me
Someone called us outlaws in some old magazine

New York sent a posse down like I ain't ever seen

Don't you think this outlaw bit's done got out of hand?
What started out to be a joke the law don't understand
Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man?

Maybe this here outlaw bit's done got out of hand, out of hand

We were wrapped up in our music that's why we never saw
Cars pull up, the boys get out and the room fills up with law
They came boundin' through the backdoor in the middle of a song

They got me for possession of something that was gone, long gone

Don't you think this outlaw bit's done got out of hand?
What started out to be a joke the law don't understand
Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man? Oh Lord
Maybe this here outlaw bit's done got out of hand

Don't you think this outlaw bit's done got out of hand, out of hand? 

Tony's Picks - BB King

Many tributes have been written about BB King since his passing on May 14^th.  I can’t possibly match the eloquent tributes to the man who came to symbolize the blues to audiences worldwide.  But I can talk about his records that I like the most.  Of all the time BB King recorded and played for live audiences, my favorite era of his music is bookended by two live albums – Live at the Regal (1965) and Live in Cook County Jail (1971).  Live at the Regal has been cited by many critics as BB’s best live album, and one of the best live albums by anybody.  It has the songs Sweet Little Angel, It’s My Own Fault, and How Blue Can You Get?, the same three songs recorded as a medley by a group called The Hourglass.  For those who know your music history, The Hourglass was a forerunner to the Allman Brothers Band.  At the time they were under contract to Liberty Records, who allowed them to record only songs picked by the record company.  The band didn’t like the material Liberty provided them.  They booked studio time and recorded their BB King Medley, the result of which can be found on the first Duane Allman anthology as well as the ABB’s box set Dreams.  It was an important milestone for what became the Allman Brothers Band, but I digress.  My point here is the influence BB King had on two white kids from Daytona Beach, Florida.  

Confessin’ the Blues (1966), Blues on Top of Blues (1968) and Lucille (1968) each have the same horn-laden, big-band blues sound.  It’s all good stuff, but the horns get in the way of hearing BB wail on Lucille.  That having been said, there is the title track to Lucille is a ten-minute guitar track that tells the story of what his guitar means to him, and how his guitar got its name.  When BB isn’t telling the story of his life, he lets Lucille “sing.” The only music Lucille likes to play is the blues.  The funny thing about Lucille is the cover.  From 1959 until his death, Lucille was a Gibson ES-355, but the guitar on the cover is a Gibson Les Paul.  But I quibble…the music contained therein is great.

Joel Selvin used to be the pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.  Recently he published a story about “a night at the Fillmore changed B.B. King’s career forever.”  The night in question was in February 1967.  He had played the Fillmore West several times before this night, but when he stepped out on stage that evening he saw something he’d never seen before – a roomful of white hippies.  BB King had played to exclusively black audiences [older black audiences at that] until this show.  Selvin described BB’s career at that time as “in decline” because the music he played [the blues] was a reminder to black audiences of the bad times and of Jim Crow.  Soul music was now the sound of the black community.  But the hippies liked the blues, and they liked them hard.  They had taken to Albert King’s guitar-driven blues, and they liked what they heard from BB King as well.  The record company took notice of the “new” demographic to whom BB King appealed.

In 1969, BB’s record label pared him with producer Bill Szymczyk, who later went on to work with the likes of The James Gang, Joe Walsh, The Eagles and The Who.  The two did four albums together, the first of which was Live & Well (1969).  Half the album was recorded live with his road band [“Live”], the other half was recorded in the studio [“Well”].  For the studio cuts, Szymczyk brought in studio musicians like Hugh McCracken, Paul Harris and Al Kooper.  The horns are still there, but they aren’t as prominent as they were on the preceding three studio albums.  Lucille and BB’s voice are brought to the fore, and the white studio guys could actually play the blues.  The blues feel is there.  There was a harder edge to the music.  The highlight for me on Live & Well is the closer Why I Sing The Blues, which clocks in at 8:37.  Short songs from BB King are ok, but I like to hear him stretch out and play.

Completely Well (1969) was an all-studio record.  With the exception of Al Kooper, the same studio musicians that played on the “Well” side of Live & Well are also present on Completely Well.  Producer Szymczyk strikes the same balance between horns, Lucille and BB’s voice on the first side of Completely Well as he did on Live & Well.  The other side of the LP is another story.  On this side, BB gets to cut loose on Lucille like I’ve never heard him before.  BB and company revisit a couple of songs BB recorded in the 1950s – Confessin’ the Blues and Cryin’ Won’t Help You Now.  These newer versions are more loose, and they sound more raw and angry.  Cryin’ Won’t Help You Now turns into a studio jam and clocks in at over twice the length of the original (6:27).  BB and the other musicians weren’t ready to quit, so the jam continued on You’re Mean for an additional ten minutes.  At the end of the jam you can hear BB say “damn, whatcha y’all tryin’ to do, kill me?”  This was a blues-meets-rock aesthetic to which BB King was more than able to tackle.  The last song is The Thrill Is Gone.  This is the song that will be forever connected with BB King, even though he didn’t write it.  The song was written by blues musician Roy Hawkins in 1951, and it was a hit for him that same year.  Bill Szymczyk got BB to record it.  When BB first heard the result, he wasn’t too sure if he liked it.  Then Szymczyk recorded that magnificent string arrangement and put it on the record.  BB liked it after that – a classic was born.  The string arrangement for The Thrill Is Gone was a first for BB King.  The song is BB King’s biggest hit, and also served as a blueprint for the follow-up album to Completely Well.

Indianola Mississippi Seeds (1970) was that follow-up.  It’s the one with the watermelon that’s made to look like a guitar.  The music contained therein sounds like The Thrill Is Gone.  For this album, producer Szymczyk dispensed with the horns all together and added string arrangements to most of the songs.  The results are very good.  The strings are present without getting in the way of the musicians.  Live & Well and Completely Well were recorded in New York.  Indianola Mississippi Seeds was recorded in Los Angeles, and with a change of scenery came a change of studio musicians.  Szymczyk used a different crew of studio musicians, including Joe Walsh on rhythm guitar, Leon Russell and Carole King (yes, that Carole King, the great songwriter who produced Tapestry the following year.).  With Carole King on electric piano (and the ever-present strings), the true follow-up to The Thrill Is Gone single is a song called Chains & Things.  Both songs are minor-chord blues and sound similar in their arrangements, but they’re different enough from one another to dismiss any notion that Chains & Things is simply a Thrill Is Gone knock-off.  Chains & Things stands on its own merits.  Leon Russell contributed his own Hummingbird to the proceedings, and did his own string and “angelic choir” arrangements for the songs.  Merry Clayton and Clydie King were part of the angelic chorus that closes out the song and the album.

As good as Live at the Regal is [and it’s very, very good], I actually prefer Live at Cook County Jail.  The music contained therein is as good as its Regal predecessor.  The blues is what Keith Richards call “adult music.”  Given this description, the screaming girls that reminds one of Beatlemania somewhat detract from the Regal show.  Both BB and Lucille are in fine voice.  There is one drawback to Cook County Jail – BB talks too much.  Maybe the captive audience didn’t want to interact with BB, hence the excess chatter from BB.  With all the time spent talking to the inmates, two or three more songs could have been squeezed out of this show.  The live version of The Thrill Is Gone makes up for it.  This isn’t Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, but then again the music doesn’t lend itself to that kind of rowdiness.

Confessin’ the Blues, Blues on Top of Blues and Lucille are nice to have.  They’re nice, and they’re polite.  But for my money Live & Well, Completely Well, Indianola Mississippi Seeds, Live in Cook County Jail and Live at the Regal are essential BB King listening.

RIP BB King.

Four Sides of The Mule

What started out as a “side project” for Warren Haynes and Allen Woody during their down time from the Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule has been around for twenty years now [they released their first album Gov’t Mule in 1995].  This year they are commemorating this milestone in a unique way by opening their vaults and releasing some live shows from the years gone by.  Every year The Mule has two special days on their concert calendar – Halloween and New Year’s Eve.  In the spirit of Halloween, where kids put on costumes and pretend to be someone else, The Mule does the same thing.  Instead of being The Mule, they pretend they’re another band.  They began this tradition in 2007, when they decided they would play Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album in its entirety.  To up the cool quotient of this show, John Paul Jones joined them for that night.  Robby Krieger of The Doors did the same thing in 2013, playing two Doors-heavy shows in California.  Since The Mule started making every show available on their Mule Tracks website, here’s what their Halloween shows have looked like:

2007 – Led Zeppelin – Holy Haunted House [Houses of the Holy in its entirety]

2008 – Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Mule

2009 – The Rolling Stones – Stoned Side of the Mule [vinyl only]

2010 – The Who [Who’s Next in its entirety]

2012 – Jimi Hendrix

2013 – The Doors [two shows with Robby Krieger]

2014 – Neil Young

To begin their twentieth anniversary celebration, they released part of the 2009 Halloween show, the vinyl-only Stoned Side of the Mule.  I haven’t heard it, but I read about it.  The sight of drummer Matt Abts prancing on-stage like Mick Jagger while singing Shattered was oft-cited to be a highlight.  That’s about all I can say about it until I get the show online [I don’t buy vinyl anymore].  National Record Store Day wasn’t too long ago, and The Mule released the rest of their Stones songs on another piece of vinyl, the cleverly-titled Stoned Side of the Mule Vol. 2.  Perhaps someday the show will be mine…

The rest of the shows in this blog ARE mine, and I’m damn glad to have them.  In 2008, Jorgen Carlsson became the permanent bass player for The Mule, and Warren really threw him in the deep end [no pun intended] of the pool.  Their second gig with Jorgen was on Halloween night, so in addition to learning all The Mule’s songs [they never play the same setlist two nights in a row], Jorgen had to learn a bunch of Pink Floyd tunes as well.  Judging from what I heard, Floyd songs are not much of a problem for Jorgen Carlsson.  The Pink Floyd show [recorded in Boston], dubbed  Dark Side of the Mule, appeared right after Thanksgiving last year.  I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, and I picked up the single-disc version that documents just the Floyd set, while a multi-disc CD/DVD edition not only has the audio of the entire show, but it was also filmed.

I had some minor reservations about how this would sound.  Pink Floyd shows were very tightly-scripted affairs [I saw two of them in 1994].  How would a band such as Gov’t Mule, one that thrives on spontaneity and improvisation [I saw them in Pensacola last October], fare in playing tightly-constructed music?  Well, I must admit that when I heard them play Money, they just about drove over the cliff during the sax solo-to-guitar solo transition, but the sufficiently recovered to avoid complete disaster.  The Mule played the Floyd tunes fairly straight and stuck with the original arrangements.  The big surprise for me was Fearless.  On Meddle, it’s a quiet, pastoral piece.  In Warren Haynes’ hands it became dark, electric 12-string menace.  I think I like it better than the original [Heresy! Burn the heretic!].  On Comfortably Numb I expected Warren to go balls-out with face-melting solos like I know he’s capable – I saw David Gilmour do it twice, but Warren opted not to go there - very curious, but the crowd seemed to like it anyway.  What Warren held back in Comfortably Numb he more than made up for it in the last half of Shine On You Crazy Diamond.  The Mule finished with an electric version of Wish You Were Here, with Danny Louis playing what sounds like a lap steel.  Except for Fearless, Warren eschewed his usual Gibson arsenal and played with Stratocasters and Telecasters to give the Mule a finer stiletto-edged sound like David Gilmour.

Warren Haynes wrote in the liner notes that there were several reasons why they decided to release their Pink Floyd Halloween set.  The show took place at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, one of their favorite places to play.  He noted this was Jorgen Carlsson’s second gig with The Mule, so “why not?”  He also noted that Rick Wright’s death only a month prior to the show made it appropriate that they should release some kind of tribute to him.  And to that end, this set is dedicated to him.

The Pink Floyd Set:  One of These Days / Fearless / Pigs on the Wing Part 2 / Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts I-V / Have a Cigar [Matt Abts sings!] / Breathe in the Air / Time / Money / Comfortably Numb / Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts VI-VIII (no Part IX ‘Funeral March’) / Wish You Were Here

“The band is just fantastic, and I think that’s really cool, by the way – which one’s the Mule?”

Sometimes The Mule treats New Year’s Eve the same way they treat Halloween – an excuse to pay tribute to the music of others.  2014 saw The Mule play 18 AC/DC songs with singer Myles Kennedy.  In 2012 they did a tribute to The Three Kings [Albert, BB and Freddie], while in 2008 there was a Seattle music theme [Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Temple of the Dog].  That would make an interesting release.  In 1999, they played a six-song set with Little Milton Campbell as well as lots of covers from the likes of The Beatles, Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Humble Pie, and more [all documented in the three-CD Mulennium].   My point is that on New Year’s Eve, one can expect a show of nothing but The Mule, or anything BUT The Mule, or something in between.  In 2006, the audience at the Beacon Theatre got something in between.

Dub Side of the Mule sounds vastly superior to the dub/reggae album they released in 2007, Mighty High.  I never thought I would say this about any Gov’t Mule album, but I hate Mighty High.  This document with Toots Hibbert should have been released in its place. It sounds great, and it is obvious that a great time was had by all.  In addition to some of Toots Hibbert’s songs, you’ll find a couple of tunes by Otis Redding.  The real curve ball here is a reggae version of a Radiohead song [Let Down].  Al Green’s I’m a Ram [one of the very few things I like about Mighty High] kicked off this set.  My favorite song from this set is Hard Road.  It alternates between being laid back and being intense.  The blues standard Turn On Your Love Light also gets the reggae treatment.  To me it sounds more like ska, but I quibble.  I like it.  It kicked off the New Year.  Warren’s Soulshine got a reggae makeover [Reggae Soulshine].  It’s ok, but I didn’t need yet another version of this overplayed song.

The reggae set:  I’m a Ram / 54-56 Was My Number / Hard To Handle / True Love Is Hard To Find / Pressure Drop / Let Down / I’ve Got Dreams To Remember / Reggae Got Soul / Hard Road / Turn On Your Lovelight / Reggae Soulshine

Sco-Mule had been sitting in the can for the longest time of these archive releases.  Warren Haynes wrote a very detailed story about how he met with guitarist John Scofield about 25 years ago and how he came to invite Scofield to play two shows with them in Georgia in September 1999.  The Mule was a rock power trio then [Allen Woody was still alive and well].  They had recorded some jazz-influenced instrumentals for their first two albums [Trane, Birth of the Mule, Thelonius Beck], and at this point they got in the habit of changing their setlists from night to night as well as expanding their repertoire.  They were looking for new musical areas to explore.  Why not do something all-instrumental?  So they got together with John Scofield and worked out some tunes – some of Scofield’s, some of theirs, and others like Mongo Santamaria’s Afro Blue.  After the shows Warren listened back to what they played and mixed the shows for eventual release.  They had already begun recording their third album Life Before Insanity, but these shows might have been the release following LBI.  That was not to be because Allen Woody died unexpectantly in 2000.  After a period of time where the band didn’t know whether to continue without Woody, they decided to record the two volumes of The Deep End as well as the live The Deepest End as a tribute to him.  Once that project was behind them, the focus was to find a permanent bass player, move ahead and create new music.  The time never felt right to release Sco-Mule…until now.

Sco-Mule track list:

Hottentot / Tom Thumb / Doing It to Death / Birth of the Mule / Sco-Mule / Kind of Bird / Pass the Peas / Devil Likes It Slow / Hottentot [alternate version] / Kind of Bird [alternate version] / Afro Blue

Gov’t Mule and John Scofield just recently completed a month of shows together, all of which were recorded.  Warren hints that there might be a Sco-Mule 2 in the future.  One can only hope!