Neil Young - Albums Ranked By Me

Some of my on-line friends who are musically inclined [you know who you are] have been discussing the collected works of Neil Young lately.  Videos have been posted, favorite albums discussed.  I've been a fan since my freshman year in college.  I have almost every studio album he's done under his own name [all but three].  So I've heard the good, the bad, and the shitty.  He released his first album in 1968 after the breakup of Buffalo Springfield.  That's 47 years if you're counting, so there's a fairly large sample size [37].  Some albums are great, and there is an equal number of "what was he thinking" unadulterated crap.  To cut to the chase, here's my list:

1.      After the Gold Rush [1970] – After a couple of years with Crosby, Stills and Nash, NY shows them what real songwriting sounds like.  There is not a single bad song on this album.  My favorites are Tell Me Why, Birds, and When You Dance You Can Really Love [Crazy Horse’s last great cut with Danny Whitten].  Southern Man needs no explanation.

2.      Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere [1969] – The first album with Crazy Horse.  Songs include Cinnamon Girl, Down by the River, and Cowgirl in the Sand, classics all.

3.      Rust Never Sleeps [1979] – The first half is acoustic, the second half is with Crazy Horse.  Rust Never Sleeps is packed with great songs.  RNS is bookended by acoustic and electric versions of the same song [My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)/Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)].  Pocahontas is wacky with its references to Marlon Brando, the Astrodome and television.  Powderfinger is my favorite from this album.  Sedan Delivery and Welfare Mothers are goofy, dumb songs that only NY & Crazy Horse can get away with.  I hope he hurries up and releases the remastered version of this. 

4.      On the Beach [1974] – If you want to record an album while you’re stoned, this is what it would sound like.  Revolution Blues is NY’s ode to Charles Manson.  The title track is a woozy meditation on stardom.  Ambulance Blues is practically a note-for-note copy of Bert Jansch’s Needle of Death.  The only bum song here is See the Sky About to Rain, a Harvest-era holdover.  This record has a great vibe of doom.

5.      Tonight’s the Night [1975] – This is a tequila-fueled wake for Danny Whitten [Crazy Horse guitarist] and Bruce Berry [CSN&Y roadie].  Guitars are out-of-tune and vocals are off-key [Neil Young off-key?  Say it isn’t so!].  Who cares?  This one keeps getting better with age.

6.      Zuma [1975] – NY finally emerges from the Tonight’s the Night ditch.  NY’s first album with Crazy Horse since Danny Whitten’s death.  Frank Sampedro replaced Whitten on guitar.  Cortez the Killer is here. Danger Bird is another good long song.  The rest are short and sound [dare I say] happy.

7.      Comes a Time [1978] – It sounds like Harvest and Harvest Moon, but the songs are better [Goin’ Back, Comes a Time, Look Out for My Love, Lotta Love, Peace of Mind, Human Highway].  Nicolette Larson [RIP] is the female voice.  Ian & Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds closes the album [a great song, BTW].

8.      Freedom [1989] – The 1980s was a lost decade for Neil Young, but he finally hit the jackpot at the end of the decade.  Like Rust Never Sleeps, Freedom is bookended by acoustic and electric versions of the same song – in this case Rockin’ in the Free World.  There's a lot of stuff in between that's very, very good.

9.      Ragged Glory [1990] – NY followed Freedom with this – two excellent albums in a row.  NY was finally out of his 1980s funk.  This is NY & Crazy Horse at their garage-band best.  I listened to it over and over again when I was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield.

10.  Harvest [1972] – NY finds the middle of the road in 1972 with Heart of Gold and Old Man.  Alabama is the son of Southern Man, much to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s annoyance.  Here he also cements his reputation as an acoustic folk hippie.  He later said that traveling in the middle of the road became a bore so he headed for the ditch.  A rougher ride, but he met more interesting people there.

11.  Harvest Moon [1992] – The 20-years-later follow-up to Harvest, so you know what to expect.  Standouts include Unknown Legend, From Hank to Hendrix, and War of Man.

12.  Mirror Ball [1995] – NY & Pearl Jam.  Four excellent songs [Song X, Act of Love, Downtown, Scenery], one superb song [Peace and Love – vocal cameo by Eddie Vedder].  These Seattle guys provide the Crazy Horse vibe without the Crazy Horse sloppiness.

13.  Sleeps With Angels [1994] – As I wrote in 2012, NY & Crazy Horse decided to throw me and their fans a filthy breaking ball with Sleeps With Angels.  It is one of the most subdued performances from them.  It is one of the most musically diverse albums Neil Young recorded with Crazy Horse.  This album is a lost nugget in the huge Neil Young discography.

14.  Neil Young [1968] – The solo career after the demise of Buffalo Springfield begins here.  Classics like The Loner and The Old Laughing Lady are found here.  I’ve Been Waiting For You is a good one as well.

15.  Psychedelic Pill [2014] – So far, this is the last one with Crazy Horse.  On Psychedelic Pill there are two kinds of songs – short, pleasant songs that might get played on the radio, and monster epic jams, of which there are three.  As with all NY & Crazy Horse albums, the less NY sings and the more the band plays, the better the album.  Walk Like a Giant is the NY & Crazy Horse song I’d been waiting on for two decades.

16.  Broken Arrow [1996] – NY & Crazy Horse’s first album without producer David Briggs.  Three really long songs and a few short ones.

17.  Le Noise [2010] – NY goes completely solo.  He’s the only musician on the album.

18.  Prairie Wind [2005] – This is another album cut in the Harvest mold.  It’s not bad, but it isn’t great either.

19.  American Stars & Bars [1977] – Three words: Like a Hurricane.

20.  Chrome Dreams II [2007] – This is a sequel to a NY album that never came out.  There’s a pretty good eighteen-minute version of Ordinary People from the This Note’s For You era.  No Hidden Path is a fourteen-minute Crazy Horse-ish workout.  The first two songs [Beautiful Bluebird, Boxcar] would not be out of place on Harvest.

21.  Re-ac-tor [1981] – Two excellent songs [Southern Pacific, Shots], one good song [Motor City].  There’s a bonehead of a song called T-Bone.  The whole song is the line No mashed potato/Ain’t got no T-bone repeated over the same monotonous riff – for nine minutes.

22.  Hawks & Doves [1980] – Mostly acoustic.  It sounds like the country album Old Ways should have been.  Not bad, not essential either.

23.  Trans [1982] – NY’s first album for Geffen Records.  Synthesizers and vocoders are everywhere.  This is an interesting work and the songs don’t suck, but this is one you can listen to maybe once a year.

24.  Greendale [2003] – A concept album about a fictitious small town in Northern California.  Themes include environmentalism, corruption and mass media.  Some songs are pretty good, others are just “meh.”

25.  Fork in the Road [2009] – NY sings about cars.  I like the title song, which is a rant against MP3s [“sounds like shit”].  There’s a song that decries social activism [Just Singing a Song].  Too bad he didn’t take his own advice.

26.  Americana [2012] – A non-essential warm-up for NY & Crazy Horse before Psychedelic Pill.

27.  This Note’s For You [1988] – NY tries his hand at big band “power swing.”  The all-digital production sucks the life out of these songs, which sound much better live on the newly-released Bluenote Café.  This spawned a great video that spoofed Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Spuds McKenzie, and excoriates big company sponsors. 

28.  Silver & Gold [2000] – An acoustic snoozer.

29.  Are You Passionate [2002] – Recorded with Booker T & the MGs [minus Steve Cropper].  NY tried and failed to record soul music.  There’s one good song, and it’s with Crazy Horse [Goin’ Home].

30.  Landing On Water [1986] – Two good songs – Touch the Night and Hippie Dream.  Shitcan the rest.

31.  Life [1987] – This album has two redeeming features – the hilarious Mideast Vacation and Inca Queen.  The rest of this album is indescribably bad.

32.  Old Ways [1985] – NY was pissed off at his record company because they sued him for making music that wasn’t commercial enough and not “representative” of past NY music.  He made this pseudo-country record after he did the computer record [Trans] and a 1950s pastiche [Everybody’s Rockin’].  Run away from this one screaming!

33.  Everybody’s Rockin’ [1983] – This album has no redeeming social value – none.

34.  Living With War [2006] – NY bashes you over the head about the Iraq War until you cry “uncle.”  He and CSN were genuinely surprised that not everybody in their audience agreed with them.  I might like this album if the songs were better, but this is a 42-minute tirade.  I hate this album.

Not Rated [I haven’t heard them]

1.      A Letter Home [2014]

2.      Storytone [2014]

3.      The Monsanto Years [2015]

Love & Mercy

The movie begins with an extreme close-up of an ear – Brian Wilson’s ear. This is the ear that Bob Dylan’s says ought to be donated to the Smithsonian after Brian Wilson passes on. Then there’s a young Brian Wilson [Paul Dano], contemplating the source of his musical inspiration. Full of self-doubt, he asks himself “what if I lose it and never get it back?” Was Brian Wilson’s battle with mental illness the spark that spurred him to make his “pocket symphonies to God”? Did his illness enable him to hear sounds in his head that only he could understand and translate into music? Do you have to be crazy to create good art?

One Sunday morning in August, Carol and I were watching CBS Sunday Morning. About halfway through the program, there was a blurb about Brian Wilson. This program doesn’t have musicians I like unless they have something new to sell, and this time it was no different. Except that instead of one new thing to sell, there were two. The first thing was Brian’s new album, No Pier Pressure. The second was a movie about Brian Wilson’s life, titled Love & Mercy. Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for theaters where it might be showing. I went to Newport News, Virginia for a week on business. The closest showing was in Washington DC. Then I took my son Greg back to college in Colorado. The movie wasn’t there. Then I was in Baltimore for two weeks – still no joy. Then last weekend while searching through the newest releases on Pay Per View, there it was. Finally!

Love & Mercy [the title of a song from Brian Wilson's first solo album] is a well-done movie about the struggles of Beach Boy mastermind Brian Wilson. Brian Wilson’s struggles with drugs and mental illness are well-documented. Some of the episodes that happened are such that the phrase “the truth is stranger than fiction” comes to mind. Unlike most musical biopics, this movie looks at two specific periods of Brian Wilson’s life – the 1960s and the 1980s. Instead of running completely through one period and then on to the other, the film volleys between the two eras. Paul Dano is the young Brian Wilson, who is quite convincing. John Cusack is the 1980s version of Brian Wilson. For the first time in I don’t know how long, John Cusack acts in this movie. He’s playing someone else instead of John Cusack. Dano and Cusack don’t look remotely like each other, but that’s a small complaint. Dano plays the childlike innocence angle very well, who had the determination to be better than the Beatles, but who is also full of self-doubt. Dano’s Wilson is the one that descends into the madness. Cusack’s Wilson is the one who hasn’t quite escaped the madness, but he’s getting there.
 
Brian Wilson was once asked about the stories told in Love & Mercy and he gave a one-word answer – “accurate.” Having read most of what there is to read about Brian Wilson’s story, I can’t argue with his assessment. The touchstones are there – the nervous breakdown on the airplane, the cause of Brian’s deafness in his right ear [supposedly], the piano in the sandbox, the tent in the living room, the painstaking recording process during the Pet Sounds sessions, the craziness that was the SMiLE sessions [especially the Mrs O’Leary’s Cow session]. There was Brian’s paranoia [thinking his house was bugged by both Phil Spector and his father]. There’s the drive to create an entire album that was greater than The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. The arguments with Mike Love over lyrics and the direction of the band are front and center.

We see a Brian Wilson who is most comfortable in a recording studio. He revels in the tedium of recording take after take of little bits of music to make sure it’s perfect. Mike Love doesn’t like it. He’s the only one of the other Beach Boys to argue with Brian about the direction of the band. He complains there aren’t any hits on Pet Sounds, and even the happy songs are sad. He also complains none of the other Beach Boys actually played on Pet Sounds [Ed. Note – except for the odd guitar part or percussion bit, that criticism is true]. Brian says there’s so much stuff that he needs to get out, but Mike criticizes that as “selfish” and having let the band down. There’s a part where Brian is in his swimming pool while Mike and the other Beach Boys argue about direction. As Brian’s paranoia grows, we notice that’s he’s literally in the deep end of the pool, as well as metaphorically. The studio musicians [“The Wrecking Crew”] like working for Brian. Drummer Hal Blaine tells Brian that of all the musicians they’ve worked with, he’s the best, but that’s small consolation for Brian.

A telling point in the “young” Brian Wilson’s story comes in either late 1966 or early 1967. He’s having dinner with his wife and friends. After the ‘commercial flop’ that was Pet Sounds, the song Good Vibrations was a #1 single. His father Murry had been telling him that he had passed his peak, that he was a “has been.” But Brian made Good Vibrations his way [the fragmented same way he made Pet Sounds], and it was a chart topper during the era of The Beatles. In what should have been a moment of triumph [an “I told you so” moment, if you will], he had a panic attack during dinner. All he could hear was the constant chatter of his dinner guests, and the clinking of silverware on plates that grew louder and louder until he could take it no longer. Afterwards, he has a meeting with the rest of the band in his swimming pool. As if to make the point absolutely clear, Brian is in the deep end [as in “going off the deep end…”].

The first time we see the 1980s Brian Wilson is in a Cadillac dealership. A shoeless Brian [he didn't want to get sand in the car] is sitting in a car on the showroom floor when he’s approached by Melinda Ledbetter [Elizabeth Banks]. She gets in the car and Brian starts talking in non sequiturs [including his jogging habits a little bit about his brother having recently died]. Soon Brian is joined by Dr. Eugene Landy and two minions. Then Landy lets slip to Elizabeth that she was talking to Brian Wilson. She knew the name – many in Southern California knew the name. Instead of giving her his phone number he handed her a piece of paper with three words on it: Lonely, Scared, Frightened. She asked him if he really stayed in bed for two years, and he said “no, it was more like three.” She was intrigued by his honesty. As she gets to know Brian, she finds that Brian is practically a prisoner in his own home. She also finds that Landy prescribes copious amounts of psychotropic drugs [the wrong ones, it turns out] in order to keep Brian under his control.

There are two villains in the movie – Brian’s father Murry and Dr. Eugene Landy. Both figures have “asshole” written all over them. A strange bit of the story involves the dynamic between Brian and Murry. Murry was a bit of a domineering control freak. Brian fired Murray as their manager [which Murry never hesitates to re-hash time and again], but yet he still wanted his father’s approval when he played his new songs to Murry. Brian asked Murry his opinion of a new song called God Only Knows. Murry didn’t like it. He thought it was “wishy washy.” During a recording session, Murry brought an acetate of a new group he was producing called the Sunrays. He thought they were the next big thing, and the Beach Boys should be more like them because they’re “has-beens.” The final betrayal by Murray when he sold the Beach Boys catalog from under them comes at the same time that SMiLE collapsed [Ed. Note – the sale actually happened in 1969; SMiLE collapsed in May 1967].

Landy is played by Paul Giamatti. Landy is Brian’s psychiatrist, nutritionist, legal guardian and overall gatekeeper/warden. He also has an explosive temper. He has total control over all of Brian’s affairs. The operative word here is control. After Brian and Melinda start dating, he asks Melinda to visit him in his office. Here he tells Melinda what she’s “getting into” – that Brian is a paranoid schizophrenic who needs to be controlled, and that as Brian’s guardian he is the control. He even asks Melinda to telephone him with all the details after every meeting she has with Brian. In his desire for absolute control over all aspects of Brian’s life, he has his ever-present minions go out on double-dates with Brian and Melinda. In one scene, Brian complains about being hungry. Landy tells him he only thinks he’s hungry and he’ll have to wait his turn to be served lunch. Melinda is willing to share, but Landy will have none of it. When Brian grabs Melinda’s hamburger and stuffs half of it in his face, Landy starts screaming at him. When he sensed that Brian and Melinda were getting too close, Landy told Melinda that it’s over between her and Brian. Brian confessed to Melinda that he’s scared of Landy - “He is my legal guardian, he can do things to me.” Cusack is very good at going from being casual about his past to being absolutely terrified of Landy.

Melinda knows that Landy is up to no good, but she needed proof. The housekeeper provided the proof with a copy of a power of attorney, one that Landy has doctored to suit his own ends. Once she had the proof, Melinda made a call to Carl Wilson. The next scene we see is one where Landy goes to the auto dealership where Melinda works. A process server saw Landy there and gave him the “you’ve been served” spiel. Landy exploded in a rage and starts yelling every expletive in the book at the closed door of her office. The more he screams, the more she knows she has won. Then suddenly she opened the door and she just looked at Landy as if to say “go ahead – say that to my face.” Landy went silent and disappeared.

Sometime after Landy disappeared from the scene, we see Brian walking down a street in Beverly Hills. He crosses the street and nearly gets run over by…Melinda! Brian told her Landy was gone and he wanted to go on a drive with her. The last scene shows Brian and Melinda pulled over on some dead-end street. At the end of the dead-end is a freeway where Brian’s childhood home used to be. He wanted Melinda to see it, but he had no idea it was gone. But no matter, Brian is away from the evil Dr. Landy and tells Melinda he wants to be with her. Cue the song Wouldn’t It Be Nice…

The film ends with the real Brian Wilson singing Love & Mercy. He’s married to Melinda, and Eugene Landy is long gone. I love happy endings…

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?