It’s been way too long since the Table Turned on the first album from The Dentists. Originally released in 1985 by the record label Spruck. The title is a reference to the famous BBC TV commentary made during the closing moments of the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final. What a spectacularly amazing album this is, with solid song writing and just the right amount of 60’s influence on the 80’s indie jangle rock sound. The song “Strawberries Are Growing in My Garden (And It’s Wintertime)” was also released as a single; years later it was still the group’s best-known song.
As I recall, I have my old friend Gary Todd to thank for introducing me to The Dentists, as a Belgian friend of his had sent him a copy of their debut 7″ EP back in the mid-80’s and he played it for me while visiting him in his downtown LA loft as he was teaching me about these new fangled home computers that everyone was getting into. One listen was all it took for me to search out anything I could find from the band, and “Some People Are On The Pitch…” fulfilled every promise made by that 7″.
Sounding like they time-travelled in from 1966 or so, picked up a couple of tips from the Smiths, and were let loose in the studio with the legendary Joe Meek behind the board, the Dentists’ first record, “Some People Are on the Pitch They Think It’s All OverIt Is Now”, was released on tiny indie label Spruck in 1985. It is an assured and exciting record informed by the sounds of the ’60s garage, folk, and psychedelic scenes (the raw sound and pounding beats, jangling 12- and six-string guitars, whimsical lyrics, and fuzzy edges, respectively), but thoroughly modern too (the Medway-inspired raw guitar sound, the at times fey and melancholic vocal stylings of Michael Murphy, the almost punk attack that the whole record has). The band plays with fire and fervor throughout, Bob Collins‘ guitar is like a live wire chiming sweetly one minute, drawing blood the next, the rhythm section is tight and tough, the vocal harmonies are spot on, and Murphy balances his moments of introspection with lots of light hearted and nearly jaunty warbling.
All of which would mean nothing without songs, and the group delivers there too. The up-tempo songs (“Flowers Around Me,” “I’m Not the Devil,” “I Had an Excellent Dream,” “Tangerine,” “Tony Bastable v John Noakes”) sound like the Byrds if they had formed in the wake of the punk explosion of the ’70s, hooky and exciting with the rough edges left on and the guitars bubbling and slashing all around. These songs belie the image of being quirky psych-fops that the band somehow ended up being saddled with. The ballads and mid-tempo songs are just as good; tunes like “Kinder Still,” “Mary Won’t Come out to Play,” and “Everything in Our Garden” have haunting melodies and Murphy does melancholy very well, some would say even better than a certain other ’80s singer whose last name begins with M. Indeed, place Some People up against the debuts of any ’80s guitar pop band and the match would end up knotted at least, the opponents trounced in most cases.
Against the best album of any ’80s guitar pop band even, because this is the best album the Dentists made. The blend of inspired songcraft performance and sound (and the fact that not too many people heard it) make the record a lost guitar pop classic. [Much of the album was reissued on Homestead’s excellent 1992 comp Dressed. Only “Everything in Our Garden” and “Back to the Grave” are missing.]
Every song is a gem, and if you like this sound and don’t have this album I suggest you search out a copy post-haste, though prepare to spend a few shekels in the process. Rev-Ola released it on CD in 2005 with the three 7″ tracks added as a bonus and I really should have grabbed a copy when it came out as it’s now an expensive out of print disc. According to Discogs the Trouble InMind label in the US did a vinyl re-issue in 2013, but those are also out of print and even more expensive.
So, it would seem it might be time for another re-issue of this brilliant LP.
LOVE with Johnny Echols make a return visit to the UK after their sell-out tour of 2019 to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the release of “Forever Changes“.
Johnny Echols says “We had planned that the 2019 UK tour would be our last overseas tour. None of us are spring chickens but this crazy time in lock down has made us realise what’s important and what we are here to do. We have missed playing for our fans, especially the UK fans, so how could we turn down the opportunity to come back and do it again?”
LOVE with Johnny Echols sees Arthur Lee’s longest serving band, Baby Lemonade, return to the UK in June and July 2022 to perform classic songs from the LOVE catalogue and to celebrate 55 years of the seminal album, LOVE with Johnny Echols make a return visit to the UK after their sell-out tour of 2019 to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the release of “Forever Changes“.
This tour features special 3-night residences in Liverpool and London where LOVE, will perform “Da Capo” and “Love” with Johnny Echols make a return visit to the UK after their sell-out tour of 2019 to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the release of “Forever Changes“. will be played in their entireties. All other shows will feature “Forever Changes“, hits and deep cuts from the Love catalogue.
From 1993 until Arthur Lee’s death in 2006, the band Baby Lemonade were an essential part of the renaissance of LOVE’s music. This iteration of LOVE saw many sold-out tours, two sell-outs at the Royal Festival Hall as well as back-to-back Glastonbury performances and an appearance on Later with Jools Holland.
Johnny Echols and Arthur Lee were childhood friends whose families both moved from Memphis to Los Angeles. The teenage Johnny & Arthur teamed up to form the groups Arthur Lee & The LAG’s and the American Four before they formed LOVE in 1965. The classic LOVE line up featuring Johnny disbanded in 1968. Johnny reunited with Arthur Lee in 2005 to perform with LOVE once more.
Baby Lemonade formed in 1992 by Rusty Squeezebox, Mike Randle and David “Daddy-O” Green. In 1993 the band landed the gig of a lifetime opening up for LOVE. That show was the last for that incarnation of LOVE as Arthur replaced them with Baby Lemonade. Baby Lemonade released records on Sympathy for the Record Industry, Munster and Big Deal between 1993 and 2001.
In 2005 the LOVE line up once again featured Arthur’s childhood friend and founding member Johnny Echols on lead guitar who returned after a 37-year absence. In July of 2005, Arthur was diagnosed with Leukaemia and after a brave battle he passed away one year later. Arthur’s last show was with Baby Lemonade and Johnny Echols on June 23rd at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord. The world had lost a true music legend.
In 2022 The LOVE band featuring Johnny Echols will return to the UK to celebrate the music of Arthur Lee & LOVE.
From the release of Love’s March 1966 debut single, “My Little Red Book” b/w “A Message to Pretty,” it was clear the Los Angeles Group was a breed apart from its contemporaries. The group, led by Arthur Lee, built much of its music upon a snarling, sneering proto-punk aesthetic not completely removed from the style of bands like the Seeds. But just under the surface, there lurked a deeper complexity and nuance.
There had been multi-racial bands before Love: though they never achieved any kind of commercial success, the short-lived Rising Sons were led by Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. But Love had a black man as its primary writer and front man, and enjoyed the higher profile and accompanying marketing boost that came with having signed to Elektra Records, home of (among others) the Doors.
Still, Love would manage only one Top 40 single in its time together, 1966’s “7 and & Is,” a track off of the band’s second album, Da Capo. That album also displayed Love and Lee’s musical ambitions: a side-long track, “Revelation,” ran nearly 19 minutes. This was a full 18 months before Iron Butterfly released its own opus, “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
As a piece of music, “Revelation” wasn’t especially noteworthy or ground breaking, but it did show that Lee and his band mates had artistic/creative inclinations beyond the three-minute pop single. And the band’s third full-length, “Forever Changes”, released in November 1967, would represent the apex of those ambitions.
[Note: A 4-CD/DVD/LP 50th Anniversary edition was released in 2018. The set features a few firsts for the album, including the CD debut of a remastered version made by its original co-producer and engineer Bruce Botnick, as well as the first-ever release of the mono version on CD. Also included are alternate mixes of the album, as well as a selection of rare and unreleased singles and studio outtakes.
The album opens with Bryan MacLean’s “Alone Again Or.” The track features a Spanish-flavoured guitar figure played by the band’s Johnny Echols. Subdued percussion and a trilling string section join to support Lee’s gentle vocal, one that has more in common with Johnny Mathis than Mick Jagger. As the song reaches the end of its first verse, bursts of brass reinforce the south-of-the-border ambience. In fact the horns sound like nothing so much as A&M Records’ flagship act, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Yet somehow, the non-rock elements combine in a way that makes “Alone Again Or” a sort of sophisticated, baroque take on rock music. The song’s arrangement makes effective use of dynamics, with instruments added and subtracted from the mix in ways that highlight the song’s virtues. And in a significant departure from the rock mindset, the solo break in “Alone Again Or” features not a guitar but instead a stirring trumpet solo, backed by strings.
“A House is Not a Motel” continues with the use of acoustic guitar as a central instrument. An insistent drum pattern and a subtle yet busy bass line part support Lee, who once again begins singing in a lilting manner. But as the song progresses, he builds in intensity, eventually reaching a rock ’n’ roll roar. Against an emphatic series of chords, Echols takes a pair of lean, sinewy electric guitar solos. For most of its first two minutes, the overall feel of “A House is Not A Motel” is one of restraint. But after a propulsive drum fill from Michael Stuart, multiple overdubbed distorted lead guitars explode into the mix; amid whoops and hollers from the band, those solos take the song to its fadeout.
The melancholy “Andmoreagain” plays up the album’s baroque character. Strings and acoustic guitars are the central instruments, and Lee’s vocal channels Mathis more overtly than anywhere else on the record. “The Daily Planet” is built around a vigorously strummed acoustic guitar, with deft stabs of chiming guitar and a beefy bass line. The mid-tempo rocker has a feel closer to the Byrds; though he’s not credited on the album, Buffalo Springfield guitarist Neil Young oversaw the track’s arrangement.
But on both “Andmoreagain” and “The Daily Planet,” it’s not really Love; instead Lee is backed by session musicians. Co-producer Bruce Botnick brought in Wrecking Crew players when he found the band unable to play what was required. Apparently, the shock of being sidelined would eventually lead the band members to get their collective act together; the remaining tracks on “Forever Changes” would feature the band (plus the string and brass players as needed).
That said, the band members take a back seat on the subtle “Old Man.” Cellos and violins are at the centre of the fragile arrangement, based upon an idiosyncratic melody from Lee. Brass and tinkling piano are added to the mix in the song’s second half. And “The Red Telephone” is almost a continuation “Old Man.” With a similar arrangement and a (different) odd melody, it features a stronger beat and an insistent harpsichord part. The seamless interplay between acoustic guitar leads and the string players underscores the fact that the fiddles and cellos were part of Lee’s arrangement ideas from the beginning of the project. Lee’s spoken lines at the song’s end give “The Red Telephone” a vaguely psychedelic feel, but that is punctured by Lee’s “All o’ god’s chillen gots to have their freedom,” delivered in a kind of self-parody of black American dialect.
Near unanimous in their praise for Forever Changes, critics often point to MacLean’s “Alone Again Or” as the strongest track on the record. But a strong case can be made that Arthur Lee’s “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale” deserves consideration as well. The brass arrangement in particular fits the song perfectly, helping provide an air of mystery and suspense. It helps, too, that for this track Lee had written a more straightforward melody. The instrumental break features a series of musical dialogues, first between acoustic guitar and the brass, then between electric guitar and the horns, and finally between Lee’s vocalizing and the auxiliary players.
The baroque arrangement that opens “Live and Let Live” is jarring when set against Lee’s lyrics about snot on his pants and threatening a bluebird with a gun. The song soon segues into a harder, rock-flavoured feel; throughout its five-plus minutes, “Live and Let Live” shifts between the two styles; the bridges rock even harder, and toward the song’s end, stinging lead electric guitar makes one of its rare appearances on Forever Changes. By the hard-charging final moment of the tune, its bears no resemblance to the manner in which it began.
As effective as those rocking moments may be, it’s on the album’s gentler tracks where Love truly shines. “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This” is a case in point. The tune sports another odd melody from Lee; his vocals twist and turn amid an intricate pizzicato string and brass arrangement that rivals “Alone Again Or” in its understated brilliance.
“Bummer in the Summer” is Forever Changes’ outlier track; Lee adopts a sneering, spitting vocal demeanor that’s closer in style and character to “7 and 7 Is” and “My Little Red Book” than it is to anything else on the album. The arrangement is similar to the Leaves’ reading of “Hey Joe” mixed with a bit of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” Other than session player Don Randi’s piano, the track doesn’t feature any auxiliary musicians.
Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008
Forever Changes concludes with “You Set the Scene,” a track built upon crystalline acoustic guitar picking, an insistent bass line and some sawing cellos. Lee’s double-tracked harmony lead vocal is among his best work on the record. In the place customarily occupied by a guitar solo, a soaring string ensemble arrangement, punctuated by brass, provides a stirring conclusion to the album. As the song winds toward its end, the majestic brass and string parts build to a crescendo, and then fade to silence.
Over a decade into their existence, Chastity Belt remains true to itself. It’s a joke told in a college town that became a living, breathing rock band. It’s a quartet of four friends–Julia Shapiro, Lydia Lund, Gretchen Grimm, and Annie Truscott–in dialogue with each other and the world. Across four albums to dazzling effect, their work stands as a deeply moving extended meditation on parties, relationships, power dynamics, sincerity, and aging–all delivered without even a hint of heavy-handedness.
Chastity Belt is a real band formed in Walla Walla, WA by Julia Shapiro (guitar, vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar), Annie Truscott (bass), and Gretchen Grimm (drums), now residing in Seattle, WA and Los Angeles, CA.
“Fake” / “Fear” the band’s new single, picks up where their self-titled fourth album left off. “Fear” snarling riff, soaring chorus, and Moby-Dick imagery came to singer and guitarist Lydia Lund after she dreamt of what she described as “gut-wrenching fear” caused by a “neverending series of unknowns.”
After recording instrumentals with engineer Samur Khouja, Lund tracked her vocals while visiting her parents, repeating the chorus, “It’s just the fear,” over and over with increasing, soaring intensity.
In her words: “My mom knocked on the door and asked, ‘Is there anything you want to talk to me about? Is there something you’re afraid of?’ At that point, I realized she thought I was doing some kind of primal scream therapy. In a way, I guess I am…honestly, feels pretty good!”
Like “Fear,” a mantra sits at the heart of “Fake,” on which Julia Shapiro examines her inability to be vulnerable. “I’m a fake,” she sings repeatedly, as she takes stock of a situation in which all language broke down and communication failed. “The song is about not being able to be honest with someone and say what you mean,” she explains. “I wrote it because I couldn’t express in words how I was feeling.”
These two songs emphasize the dual nature of Chastity Belt: interior and exterior, catharsis and introspection, play and hesitation. Yet more than anything else, they are the work of four friends with the unique ability to render heady emotional territory lighter than air and the power to make that feeling universal.
“Island Family” is the fifth album from Isle-of-Eigg dwelling electro-acoustic psych-pop wonder Pictish Trail, AKA Johnny Lynch. A strange, unpredictable, sardonic and yet deeply personal record inspired by all from Fever Ray to The Flaming Lips, Liars, Mercury Rev and Beck, “Island Family” is Pictish Trail’s contrarian view of arcadia; a search for the euphoric in the bucolic, bound up in sometimes conflicting ideas and feelings around nature and environment, sincerity and artifice, escapism and belonging. It’s an album about how no man can remain an island, however hard he might try.
Released by Fire Records, with support from Johnny’s own label Lost Map, and produced by long-term collaborator Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group), ‘Island Family’ opens with its title track, a song of death, ghosts and the ties that bind, fusing abrasive electronic beats with a tongue-in-cheek fireside folk refrain and the haunted ice cream van melody of a digitally reincarnated traditional Scottish jig. A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is five-and-a-half-minutes of cathartic churning bass.
‘In The Land of The Dead’ is an eight-bit glitch-core reflection on island party excesses spasming into existential dread and regret, suitably accompanied by a funereal mariachi band. It’s followed by the epic ‘It Came Back’, the understated verses and arms-aloft falsetto chorus of which are accompanied by a tense, foreboding bass-driven electro hip hop instrumental with (spoiler) a brain-shattering industrial-metal meltdown. ’Melody Something’ is the album’s purest moment, a cautiously uplifting solar-powered-ballad about losing track of time in the cycle of the seasons, and the gap between memory and reality. Shapeshifting closer ‘Remote Control’ is a channel hopping cabin-fever-dream flipping from warped boyband ballad to deep-fried fuzz pop.
“One of my favourite artists” Lauren Laverne, BBC 6 Music
Slow Pulp are a great band. I recently thought, “Huh, we don’t talk about Slow Pulp’s 2020 album “Moveys” enough.” That record found the Chicago rockers combining playful melodies with unexpected lush arrangements, all while maintaining their love of noise. Today, they’ve returned with another single that we also shouldn’t sleep on called “Shadow,” and it continues that distortion-underlining cheer that the group does so well. There’s a bit of flutage going on, and Emily Massey’s vocals soar, collide, and double in size like an unending echo.
“Shadow was written on the tail end of recording Moveys in the Spring of 2020,” the band explained about the new single. “This song is about feeling like you’re out of control, like there’s a certain part of you that doesn’t seem to want to work with the rest.”
Check out their upcoming tour dates and listen to “Shadow” Written by Slow Pulp Performed by Henry Stoehr, Theodore Mathews, Alexander Leeds, Emily Massey
Cover Song As promised, we’ve got a lil Halloween treat for yous. We planned on playing Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus (made famous by its presence in the movie Silence of the Lambs) at our show tonight but since it was cancelled, we’re releasing a LIVE version of it
Our totally LIVE cover of Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus
released October 29, 2021 Grace Koon – Guitar, Vocals Dave McGrory – Drums, Vocals Brian Bartling – Digital Saxophone, Bass Synth
The full-length (and Keeled Scales) debut of Atlanta’s Lunar Vacation, “Inside Every Fig Is a Dead Wasp” arrives less than a week after the band’s hometown Shaky Knees set—one of the festival’s best, if you ask us. Co-founding song writers, vocalists and guitarists Grace Repasky and Maggie Geeslin lead the four-piece, who teamed with Grouplove’s Daniel Gleason to record their first album.
The result melds the timelessly bright and precise melodies of Alvvays with breezy psychedelia and intimate, singer/songwriter-style introspection—elements that combine to irresistible effect on tracks like lead single “Shrug.” Listening to this record feels like reuniting with an old friend, entering a space where your triumphs are celebrated and your troubles are gently lifted off your chest.
Like their EP’s, this full album contains awesome songs that take me to a relaxing “island on the moon”. Grace is a true artist, and the music with Maggie and the other bandmates is the best in the Atlanta/ Athens, GA scene.
My Idea, the new pop duo comprised of musicians Nate Amos and Lily Konigsberg, are releasing “That’s My Idea“, their debut five-song effort worldwide today on Hardly Art Records. The EP features their two-in-one official visual for singles “Stay Away Still” and “That’s My Idea,” along with “I Can’t Dance.”
“Underscored by a deadpan monotone that counters every sentiment of singer Lily Konigsberg’s with an eyerolling comeback, ‘Stay Away Still’ introduces My Idea as a band unafraid to have fun with the form. Hooked around a lo-fi, three chord swagger, there’s an easy, fuzzy charm to its bounce, but there’s also oodles of personality on show here to elevate the track above just another US indie export.” [“Stay Away Still”] – DIY
“The couplet kicks off with the bouncy ‘Stay Away Still,’ a song the retains the joyful juvenescence of their best work, and even heightens it to a degree. Both Konigsberg and Amos have been creating songs practically since they could talk, and that wonderment comes through in the song’s sunshine swagger, full of various voices and laughter…’That’s My Idea’ gets a little overcast and emotional, but not without sacrificing the joyful atmosphere of two talented musicians jamming together, working through their worries in tight unison. A song of passive confrontation, it finds Konigsberg whisper-singing “that’s my idea” repeatedly until its threaded through your cortex irreversibly.” [“Stay Away Still” + “That’s My Idea.”] – Beats Per Minute
“Together the music they make is artfully delightful indie pop that you can only fall for as soon as you hear it” – Closed Captioned
“The debut single from prolific Brooklyn musicians Lily Konigsberg of Palberta and Nate Amos of Water From Your Eyes captures the juxtaposition of returning to a new life transitioning out of pandemic isolation. Konigsberg’s feathery lyrics pack a punch describing the whirl of thoughts surrounding being judged out in public again while Amos’ guitar brings a lively playfulness to the track.” [“Stay Away Still”] – Ears to Feed
“‘Stay Away Still’ delivers darkly tongue-in-cheek lines like “depression’s a conspiracy theory” over jittery rhythms, twitchy guitars, while Lily Konigsberg’s sardonic vocal hooks push and pull.
It’s infectious art-pop that winds up like a spinning top, oscillating joyously in the rough proximity of the dexterous song writing of Breeders or the inner dialogues of The Mouldy Peaches. While the drum machine clicks and hushed delivery of ‘That’s My Idea’ has an alt-country flecked beguiling more meditative charm.” [“Stay Away Still” + “That’s My Idea” / Video of the Week] – God Is In The TV
“Spunky and fun” [“Stay Away Still”] – NPR Music
What People Are Saying About My Idea: “Wonderfully alluring.” [“Stay Away Still” / “That’s My Idea.”] – Stereogum
“‘Stay Away Still’ builds gradually, with new layers being introduced throughout. Finally, it swells to a big bouncy climax that comes to an abrupt stop leaving you eager for more and grateful that this song has dropped as part of My Idea’s special two-in-one release.” [“Stay Away Still” / “Track of the Day”] – Get In Her Ears
About My Idea: For My Idea, music has always been the plan. “I wrote a song in a pool in Florida when I was two,” explains Konigsberg, humming the melody over video chat, and Amos nods in agreement, “When I was four I wrote one called “like a cat” about how my girlfriend sleeps at the foot of the bed like a cat.” Though they’ve both been pulled toward song writing since a young age, it’s a miracle they ever ended up doing it together.
While Konigsberg is a Brooklyn lifer, Amos’ family bounced around from Colorado to Pennsylvania and eventually Vermont. At some point, he up and left to Chicago, looking for a change of scenery. “I was just bored, I still am,” he says of the decision, which might also explain the immense volume of recording projects (roughly 250) that he worked on during his four year stint there. Eventually he ended up in New York to start the avant pop band Water From Your Eyes, and before long, had crossed paths with Lily.
After years performing with her experimental punk group Palberta, Konigsberg was beginning to carve out a solo career, and thought Amos could be a potential producer. What began as a trial session for her debut album quickly evolved into a song writing competition, with the two churning out dozens of tracks over the Fall of 2020. “Lily became the lyric supervisor and I became the music supervisor,” explains Amos, “the roles emerged.” With such undeniable chemistry, it was only logical that they form a band, the hilarious and perfectly named My Idea.
On their debut EP, the duo pack their immense personalities into bite sized pop experiments. “Stay Away Still” delivers tongue-in-cheek lines like “depression’s a conspiracy theory” over tightly wound indie rock, while “Birthday” immediately pivots into icy glitchiness, pitting pulsing drum & bass against glossy vocals. There’s an economy to their songwriting, every production choice and lyric pulling you into their world without ever becoming overwhelming. Lyrics like “God is great and music’s better” feel like a revelation on “I Can’t Dance”, and the piano arpeggios on “Keep Lying To Me” build the tension to a boiling point before erupting into autotuned euphoria.
Their union has been described by friends as “watching two planets collide”, and their 13-minute debut feels like watching a universe only begin to expand.
After pioneering country rock with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons perfected the form on GP. Though the singer-songwriter’s 1973 Reprise Records solo debut includes some covers (George Jones’ “That’s All It Took” among them) the album leans heavily on such outstanding originals as “She” and “The New Soft Shoe.” Great as the material is, it’s the performances that really put this set over the top; Gram’s vocals never sounded better, and he’s surrounded by such stellar instrumentalists as guitarist James Burton, fiddler Byron Berline and co-producer Ric Grech on bass. In a class by herself is Emmylou Harris, whose harmonizing here helped launch her illustrious career. Parsons was born on this day in 1946, and we’ll salute the cosmic American musician with another spin of GP.
The late Gram Parsons. A walking contradiction. An angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other…sounds like someone I could have related to. Gram’s voice hangs on a thread on “She”, a sublime country ballad with lilting melody, subtle rhythmic shifts and gorgeous chord changes. Just hearing the way Gram sings the word “Hallelujah” is enough to make the most fervent unbeliever put their faith in the Lord above. Gram’s singing was always so assured and yet so naked and fragile.
By the time Gram Parsons released his debut solo album, he’d already been a central figure in southern rock ‘n’ roll. He’d started the band International Submarine Band, had been a pivotal building block in the Byrds’ best album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and co-founded The Flying Burrito Brothers all between 1968 and 1970. Fast-forward three years, and he, finally, made a record under his own name—and it’s a pretty damn terrific one. “GP” is 11 of the most soulful, poetic country rock songs this side of Sun Records. It introduced the world to the eternal greatness of Emmylou Harris while solidifying Parsons’ legacy altogether. “She” and “A Song for You” and “That’s All It Took” are reflective, compassionate and beautiful standouts, while “Streets of Baltimore” endures as a country staple.
Keith Richards said about Gram: “Man, I never been so angry about anyone checkin’ out early as that guy…he was totally on the right track.” Keith sounded sad when he said this, thinking of his friend who had slipped away in 1973. I guess Keith was made of stronger stuff than Gram, the visionary Southern boy who was blessed with good looks and charm as well as a burning love of soulful music, particularly of the country variety. He also had a lust for hedonistic excess, but he wouldn’t have been Gram if he hadn’t.
Listen to any number of songs; the good feeling of “Older Guys” or the heartbreakers “A Song For You” or “Brass Buttons”, and you’ll know why Gram Parsons is one of the greatest artists ever.
The 1960s British blues boom’s favourite Louisiana bluesman James Isaac Moore (his song I’m A King Bee was an early Rolling Stones’ cover), Aka Slim Harpo remains the state’s seminal swamp bluesman. His lazily drawled, bluesy vocals, framed by fleet-of-note guitar, simple harmonica and grinding funky rhythm section, helped define a timeless form of modern blues that was rooted in Deep South tradition. Slim Harpo was a leading exponent of the swamp blues style, and “one of the most commercially successful blues artists of his day”. He played guitar and was a master of the blues harmonica, known in blues circles as a “harp”.
Towards the end of his brief life, however, Slim was busy modifying his blues with elements drawn from the then-voguish soul and progressive rock genres. At the time of their first release, many blues purists were apt to dismiss these trends and recordings out of hand. With hindsight, though, the blues produced at the end of Slim’s career sound as strong as anything he recorded earlier (and they benefit from the weight added to the musical fidelity by their improved studio sound and stereo recording).These 25 sides include Slim’s classic and truthful version of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, a threatening, slow-grinding Jody Man, a sly, boastful Dynamite (“I’m dynamite pretty baby/All you do is light my fuse”), a great version of (the much over-recorded) Rock Me Baby, the southern-fried recipe of Tee-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu and the classic 2-part Tip On In. Guitarist Lynn Ourso, who played on Harpo’s later Baton Rouge Sessions recalled: “It was a dream working with Slim Harpo because he was my hero..
We lost one of the greats when Slim died”.
Slim Harpo is one of the very best rhythm & blues artists. This is such a cool groove…the way the guitar works with the bass and drums. It’s subtle and lazy but funky. I dig this stuff: “Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu”, “Shake Your Hips”. Slim Harpo is an important figure in the scheme of things. Ask Alex Chilton…ask the Stones.
Never a full-time musician, Harpo owned a trucking business during the 1960s. According to writer Ryan Whirty, “Harpo and his band needed to tour constantly and play as much as possible; times were frequently lean financially, and the men had to scrape up whatever they could get.” But, by 1964, several of his songs had been released on albums and singles in the UK, and British rock bands began to include versions of his songs in their early repertoires. British Merseybeat/R&B group The Moody Blues reportedly took their name from an instrumental track of Slim’s called “Moody Blues”.
Harpo was more adaptable than [Jimmy] Reed or most other bluesmen. His material not only made the national charts, but also proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic … A people-pleasing club entertainer, he certainly wasn’t above working rock & roll rhythms into his music, along with hard-stressed, country & western vocal inflections … By the time his first single became a Southern jukebox favourite, his songs were being adapted and played by white musicians left and right. Here was good-time Saturday-night blues that could be sung by elements of the Caucasian persuasion with a straight face.
He had his biggest commercial success in 1966, when the predominantly instrumental “Baby Scratch My Back” reached number one on the R&B chart and number 16 on the broader chart. Harpo described it as “an attempt at rock & roll for me” and was again produced by Miller. However, disagreements with Miller and a change in the record company’s ownership led to two follow-ups, “Tip On In” and “Tee-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu”, being recorded in Nashville with new producer Robert Holmes.
He recruited Lightnin’ Slim for his touring band in 1968, and toured widely in the late 1960s, mainly reaching rock audiences. With his first scheduled tour of Europe and recording sessions already planned, “one of the cleanest living bluesmen of his era” died suddenly of a heart attack in Baton Rouge in January 1970 aged 46. He was buried in Mulatto Bend Cemetery in Port Allen, Louisiana
