Folks, I’ll be the first to tell you that our last CHART ATTACK! was just a little depressing. Marky Mark? Ugh! Color Me Badd? Ugggggh! Bryan Adams? Uggggggghhhh! Good news, though: I’m pleased to report that this week’s Top 10 is much, much better — sure, there are some mild clunkers, but the majority of these songs are absolutely fantastic. See if you agree as we attack November 3, 1973!
10. All I Know — Garfunkel
9. Space Race — Billy Preston 8. Let’s Get It On — Marvin Gaye 7. Ramblin’ Man — The Allman Brothers Band 6. Heartbeat – It’s a Lovebeat — The DeFranco Family Featuring Tony DeFranco
5. Paper Roses — Marie Osmond 4. Half-Breed — Cher 3. Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1) — Eddie Kendricks 2. Angie — The Rolling Stones 1. Midnight Train to Georgia — Gladys Knight & the Pips
Following the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel in 1970, Art Garfunkel removed his focus from the music business; for three years, he focused on his acting career, appearing in Mike Nichols movies such as Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge, taught mathematics at a private school in Connecticut, and studied classical music in Europe. Finally, in 1973, he assembled a group of songwriters (what, you thought he was going to write songs himself?) and recorded songs for a new album, entitled Angel Clare. The first single, “All I Know,” was written by Jimmy Webb (the first of many Garfunkel/Webb collaborations) and was his first solo entry on the Top 10 — and by “first,” I mean “only,” though he did have three #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary charts. The song is exactly what you’d expect: musically, it’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” minus the bridge or troubled water, and lyrically, it’s deep into Mellow Gold territory. Art’s voice sounds a touch creepy here on the original, especially any time he gets near a low note. Still, it’s quite pretty, and you really can’t go wrong with songs like these, especially ones that feature Webb’s beautiful piano. The only thing I don’t understand is why, for his first few albums, Art was only billed as “Garfunkel.” Was he concerned that if he added the “Art,” people wouldn’t know who he was? How many Garfunkels are out there, really? If he wanted to capitalize on familiarity, perhaps he should have billed himself as “& Garfunkel.”
I found a nice video of Art Garfunkel performing “All I Know” on Saturday Night Live, but it’s on a Chinese website and I can’t figure out how to embed it. Still, it’s worth a watch; the song is much more effective in this stripped-down incarnation.
9. Space Race — Billy Preston
I personally had never heard “Space Race” before this week, but if you watched American Bandstand regularly, chances are you’ll recognize it as the music played during the mid-show commercial break, from 1974 until the show’s end. It worked great for that purpose, too — a sequel of sorts to 1972’s “Outa-Space,” “Space Race” is a thick slab of instrumental funk with a fantastic groove. But here’s the thing: on American Bandstand, you never got to hear more than a few seconds of the song. At around a minute and a half, it becomes pretty clear that a better title would have been “Holy Crap You Guys, I Just Got a New Keyboard and Look at All the Cool Sounds I Can Make, Wah Wah Wah Wah!” I can’t help but wonder if this song is what inspired Daryl Dragon to buy a Casio, and that just breaks my heart. Still, I can’t give Billy Preston too much grief. Apart from having theworld’sgreatestafro, the man was an unbelievable talent. And who doesn’t love the hell out of “Nothing From Nothing”?
Just when you start to think that Rhino is the only company that knows how to do the box set thing, along comes ABKCO Records with their entry in the definitive statement sweepstakes. In this case the statement in question is in regard to the classic live Rolling Stones album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out from 1969.
Exactly how do you build a big fancy box set out of a single disc live album from 40 years ago? Well you start by remastering the original tracks. Then you dig up five previously unreleased tracks from the Madison Square Garden shows that didn’t make the original cut, and make them your second audio disc. The sets by the show’s stellar opening acts, B.B. King, and Ike and Tina Turner, have never been released before, so you make those Disc Three.
You’ll need a DVD, so grab that footage from the Maysles brothers (who also made the tour documentary Gimme Shelter), which includes full-length versions of the five newly released Stones tracks, and some behind the scenes stuff. The songs are great, but the opportunity to see Mr. Watts interact with the donkey with whom he’d eventually share the album’s cover is priceless, and the footage of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin backstage at the Garden is touching. Less than a year later they would both be gone. Watching the Stones and the Dead in a parking lot in San Francisco waiting for the helicopters that would take them to Altamont is simply chilling. Finally, you’ll need a book, and ABKCO have filled their 56-pager with an essay from tour photographer Ethan Russell, and the original Rolling Stone album review by the great Lester Bangs. In between all the words, publish some interesting photos, including one of the album’s original cover. (more…)
Four poor kids from Liverpool formed a band and became the greatest rock group of all time. And they made a lot of money. Although most musicians make their big money on tour, the Beatles have not performed live since 1966. Two of its members are dead, so there won’t be a reunion tour (although that hasn’t stopped Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey).
But the money rolls in, and for all of the members or their heirs. To celebrate the release of The Beatles: Rock Band and the release of remastered and mono boxed sets of the Beatles’ albums, this week’s Numberscruncher will look at some of the band’s money matters.
Musicians are paid several ways. They are paid for their professional services whenever they perform, which is why touring can be a good deal for a band with a loyal fan base. For a recorded performance, the artist may have received a one-time fee or may be eligible for a royalty from each sale or play. Then, if they wrote the song, they receive a payment for the use of it, whether when performed by the band or by someone else. That songwriting royalty is split in half, with a share going to the songwriter and another share going to the publishing company that handles the licensing and distribution of the song and the sheet music. Publishing involves a lot of clerical and administrative work that most musicians are not interested in doing, so the separation makes sense. (more…)
For the past few weeks — and because of my job managing a promotions department at a radio station — I’ve been inundated with Woodstock. The film Taking Woodstock, the director’s cut of Woodstock, TV specials, and special radio programming dedicated to Woodstock have all, in one way or another, crossed my desk this month. From the way Woodstock is marketed, it’s as if 1969 was the beginning and end of live music festivals. But we all know better. Where I live (the San Francisco Bay Area), the Outside Lands Music and Arts festival just wrapped up. It was a lower key event this year — owing in no small part to The Great Recession– but still, a crush of people descended on Golden Gate Park to enjoy band after band, substance after substance, and being with friends who love live music. Now we all know (or at least I hope most of those who read the music section of Popdose know) that some bands are just sublime live. Other bands, alas, suffer from ProTools-itis. That is to say, their limited musical abilities are masked by the plug-ins and other bells and whistles that come with digital multi-track recording. I’m happy to report that the bands and performers featured here have probably all used Pro Tools, but not for the reasons stated above. One disclaimer: before you get started sampling this mix, the song by Westbound Train is not a live recording, but I have seen crappy You Tube videos of them, and they are a tight, talented group.
It’s amazing, the things a guy can learn even at my advanced age. The real treat for me, in slapping together this (too)-long-running series – which already has examined hits from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s that ran out of gas just one block short of the Texaco – has been the opportunity to put into context some of the music-geek trivia that’s been crowding out more important information in my head for the last 30 years.
I’m embarrassed to say I was able to sit down at my laptop and reel off the names of about three dozen #2 hits from the grand and glorious ’80s without even cracking open my ever-present Joel Whitburn or Fred Bronson singles bibles. (The fact that I could do that, but can’t tie a Windsor knot, may explain why my career on Wall Street never took off. It also made narrowing down to 10 songs for this list a painful experience.) But it’s one thing to keep song titles and chart placements in your memory; it’s another to marvel at the tricks of fate, poor taste, or record-biz manipulation that launch one single over another on the way to Top 40 glory. Take this first juxtaposition, for example:
11. “Hazy Shade of Winter,” the Bangles. Here’s the hit that slaps some sense into those who mistake the Bangles for a novelty act, or stubbornly cling to the notion that Susanna, Vicki, Debbi and Michael didn’t really rock. They took a 20-year-old, twee-as-all-get-out Simon & Garfunkel tune and turned it into a fuzz-guitar anthem of ’80s excess, the perfect theme for what should have been a much better movie based on Bret Easton Ellis’ Hollywood-druggies novel Less than Zero. (Funny how the movie biz managed to mangle both Ellis’ book and Jay McInerney’s New York equivalent, Bright Lights, Big City. Of course, casting pretty boys Andrew McCarthy and Michael J. Fox as jaded protagonists didn’t help.) Anyway, how were the Bangles rewarded for their maturity and brilliance in transforming “Hazy Shade of Winter”? They were left in the dust by the god-awful ballad “Could’ve Been,” which might have been less terrible had it not been butchered by that caterwauling, flavor-of-the-month, shopping-mall princess Tiffany. A slightly interesting fact about “Could’ve Been”: Its composer, Lois Blaisch, was “discovered” while singing for her supper at a recently-shuttered restaurant a few miles from my house, called the Hungry Hunter. I knew there had to be a reason why I never considered going into that place … besides, of course, the goofiness of its name, particularly considering that it sat in the middle of a SoCal strip mall… (more…)
He denies being the man who murdered love, but he is one of the men who served as a member of XTC. That’s right, he’s Andy Partridge, and this upstanding musical legend was kind enough to take on the daunting task of answering the questions of the Popdose readership…questions which, it must be said, ranged from the obscure to the ridiculous and hit virtually every spot in-between. Mr. Partridge was a gem throughout the conversation, however, and endured them all with great aplomb, never failing to come back with a witty retort.
(”You bastard” still counts as witty, right?)
Join us now as we enter into the Popdose Interview with the one and only Andy Partridge… (more…)
Mainstream Rock: The Rolling Stones, “Mixed Emotions” (1989)
Scott Malchus: This was the album when Keith and Mick supposedly started liking each other again. In truth, I think Mick suddenly realized the money-making potential of a group of ’60s and ’70s icons touring endlessly. “Mixed Emotions” began the endless cycle of soulless Stones albums put out for the sole purpose of trying to make them seem relevant. I have never found much of the current music remotely interesting. However, since Rolling Stone gives every Rolling Stones record five stars, I must be in the minority.
Darren Robbins: Is this a Stones or Fabulous Thunderbirds video? I must say, it is difficult to differentiate between the two, but if the singer is shown in full-on Olivia Newton-John aerobics attire (circa Perfect), it’s a Stones video.
Beau Dure: You’re not the only one with mixed emotions, but you’re the only one who listened to this song more than once. The Stones have some solid material in the MTV era, and this isn’t horrid, but it’s not particularly memorable except that I kept thinking “suction my lips” instead of “button your lip” would be a funny opening line.
Dw. Dunphy: I’d imagine longtime Stones fan breathed a sigh of relief when they first heard “Mixed Emotions.” I’d imagine, just the same, that they had their own on the second listen. Why? Because they realized that from here on out, they weren’t getting anything new from the boys (giggle, tee hee, snort.) Don’t get me wrong, if this or any other song from Steel Wheels comes on the radio, I don’t mind. But this was the clear proof that they were only going to recycle the sights, sounds and smells of Some Girls and Tattoo You from then on.
David Lifton: Everything decent the Stones have put out since, say, Tattoo You is basically a recycling of things that they did better years earlier. We get it by now: Keef with the I-IV on an open-tuned Telecaster, Charlie playing that drum pattern that says that he can’t be bothered to come up with anything interesting. The other single, “Rock And A Hard Place,” was basically “Brown Sugar.” But it works on this song because, well, it’s the Stones, dammit. It’s the musical equivalent of when James Bond says, “Shaken, not stirred,” and you still love it no matter which Bond says it. It helps that it’s got a fantastic chorus.
After watching the first 10 minutes, the most surprising thing about Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary about the Rolling Stones, is that it ever happened. Shot in grainy black and white, the “behind the scenes” beginning captures miscommunication after miscommunication, compromise after compromise. If it’s not the set design (which Stones front man Mick Jagger claims is what Scorsese wanted, only for Scorsese to claim it’s what Jagger wanted), it’s the lighting (“We can’t burn Mick Jagger!” Scorsese exclaims to his stage director), or moving cameras (Jagger doesn’t want them to distract the audience, but Scorsese politely says, “It would be good to have a camera that moves,” as though he were an athlete saying it would be nice if he could use his arm). Through this Scorsese does his best to keep any frustration or confusion beneath the surface, covering it with nervous laughter and shrugs.
The matter of the set list is the most passionately debated, with Scorsese giving recommendations to Jagger, who keeps his own list of songs sorted by their “knownness” (well-known, medium known, etc.). After failed attempts to find out the set-list in advance, Scorsese resigns to just asking for it as soon as possible. Jagger promises he’ll comply, and he does — giving it to Scorsese all of 30 seconds before the show starts. Jagger’s obsessing over the set list aside, the Stones are a blissed-out counterpart to Scorsese’s nervousness, rambling around the stage, shaking hands with the Clintons (the two shows were fundraisers for the Clinton Foundation) as though making a movie with a legendary director and meeting legendary politicians were as average as brushing their teeth. (more…)
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It’s amazing, the things a guy can learn even at my advanced age. The real treat for me, in slapping together this (too)-long-running series – which already has examined hits from the 
After watching the first 10 minutes, the most surprising thing about Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary about the Rolling Stones, is that it ever happened. Shot in grainy black and white, the “behind the scenes” beginning captures miscommunication after miscommunication, compromise after compromise. If it’s not the set design (which Stones front man Mick Jagger claims is what Scorsese wanted, only for Scorsese to claim it’s what Jagger wanted), it’s the lighting (“We can’t burn Mick Jagger!” Scorsese exclaims to his stage director), or moving cameras (Jagger doesn’t want them to distract the audience, but Scorsese politely says, “It would be good to have a camera that moves,” as though he were an athlete saying it would be nice if he could use his arm). Through this Scorsese does his best to keep any frustration or confusion beneath the surface, covering it with nervous laughter and shrugs.