DAY 95.
The Young Rascals..................Groovin'    (1967)






Just listened to this one, only really liked "Groovin'" the rest were all pretty hollow, thin just felt pretty weak, now I know that they're not exactly musical terms, but that's how I felt listening to this album.

It also had the original of David Cassidy's cover and  UK No1,  "How can I be Sure," both of which I didn't particularly care for, a girl I was knocking about with at that time, loved him and had posters of him on her wall we kind of fell out when she found Cassidy sucking on something that had been drawn on a poster in her room.
Jealousy's an affy thing when your young!

As there was only 1 song I thought was half decent this wont be going in my collection

Bits & Bobs



The Young Rascals aka The Rascals (the group dropped the "Young" from their name in early 1968 while continuing their streak of hits) were an American soul and rock group of the 1960s.



 Felix Cavaliere (keyboard, vocals), Gene Cornish (guitar), Dino Danelli (drums) and Eddie Brigati (vocals) formed the band in New York City. Three-quarters of the group - Felix, Gene, and Eddie - had previously been members of Joey Dee and the Starliters. Eddie's brother, David Brigati, another former Starliter, arranged the vocal harmonies and sang backgrounds on many of the group's recordings (informally earning the designation as the Fifth Rascal). When Atlantic Records signed them, they discovered that they already had another obscure group named the Rascals on the payroll. They decided to rename the group the Young Rascals.



 Their first minor hit was "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" (1965), followed by the #1 single "Good Lovin'" (1966, originally by the Olympics). Soon the band began to mature as songwriters and released other hit songs written themselves, including the hit "Groovin'" (1967), "It's Wonderful", "How Can I Be Sure" (which got to #1 in the UK when covered by David Cassidy), and "A Beautiful Morning" (1968).


 Their best-remembered song was "People Got to Be Free" (1968), a passionate plea for racial tolerance. Unusual for their time, the Rascals refused to tour on segregrated bills. After "People Got to Be Free", the Rascals never regained their former fame or had as large a hit.


 In 1970, Eddie Brigati left the group, followed by Cornish in 1971. The last album with them as active members was Search & Nearness, which featured Eddie singing lead on the Cornish-penned You Don't Know and their cover of The Box Tops hit The Letter. The only single release from the album was the spiritually-themed Glory, Glory(#57 in the US), with backing vocals by The Sweet Inspirations. Cavaliere and Danelli released two more albums as The Rascals, Peaceful World and The Island Of Real, using other musicians and singers. They disbanded in 1972.


 Cavaliere released several solo albums throughout the 1970s. Brigati, with his brother David, released "Lost in the Wilderness" in 1976. Cornish and Danelli worked together in other groups, including Bulldog and Fotomaker. In 1982, Cavaliere and Danelli joined Steve Van Zandt in Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul.
 The (Young) Rascals were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997

 

Last edited by arabchanter (14/11/2017 12:07 am)

DAY 97.
The Kinks..............Something Else   (1967)







Although it contained some of The Kinks' finest material including two Top Ten hits, Ray's masterpiece "Waterloo Sunset" and Dave's elegant "Death Of A Clown," Something Else was their worst selling album to date' only reaching No.35 in October 1967.

"David Watts" a homoerotic tale of schoolboy admiration, and "Waterloo Sunset" a peerless homage to London, surely represents the pinnacle of Ray Davies' talent

 

DAY 97.
The Kinks..............Something Else   (1967)
 [img]https://allflac.com/covers/b/b_306113_Kinks__The-Something_Else_By_The_Kinks-1967-(FLAC-EAC-LOG-CUE).zip[/img]


Really enjoyed this one, I have always liked The Kinks and this album didn't disappoint, apart from "Lazy Old Sun," I'm led to believe the disjointed music was an intended effect, but I can't say it worked in my opinion.

The rest of the album fly's by, opening up with "David Watts" then into "Death Of A Clown" through to a favourite of mine "Harry Rag" (which for some reason reminds me of the old music hall songs) and finishing up with the superbly written and performed "Waterloo Sunset"

If I didn't already have this album, it would certainly be added to my collection, although this album didn't sell as well as was expected this for me, was more or less The Kinks in their prime, and at the top of their game.


Bits & Bobs;


David Watts


It is about the singer's great admiration of fellow schoolboy David Watts, who appears to have a "charmed life." There is an undercurrent of either deep envy or, as AllMusic put it, "a schoolboy crush." It is also, as Jon Savage has written, one of Ray Davies' "sharpest homoerotic songs". As Ray Davies has confirmed in The Kinks: The Official Biography by Savage, "David Watts is a real person. He was a concert promoter in Rutland". Ray goes on to relate how the real Watts was gay and demonstrated an obvious romantic interest in brother Dave. In this light, lines like "he is so gay and fancy free"; and "all the girls in the neighbourhood try to go out with David Watts....but can't succeed.." provide a second level of interpretation based on this ironic in-joke.


Death Of A Clown
In the July 2011 documentary Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come, Davies said this song resulted from him sitting at the piano and feeling unhappy with his life, that there should be something else. It was about disillusion, even though at the time he had fame, fortune, drugs and beautiful girls, there was something missing. He drew the analogy with a clown who makes everyone laugh but is really crying.


 "Death Of A Clown" runs to 3 minutes 4 seconds, and is the second track on the Something Else album. Dave released it as a solo single on the Pye label in July 1967 backed by "Love Me Till the Sun Shines". Rasa Davies, who was then married to brother Ray, sang on the chorus.


 By coincidence, one of the most famous clowns in history, Joseph Grimaldi, was born December 18, 1778 a few miles from where the Davies brothers grew up. Clowns celebrate his life with the Funeral of Grimaldi the first Sunday in February at All Saints Church, London.


Two Sisters

Not to be confused with any later song of the same name, "Two Sisters" was written by Ray Davies and is also certainly based on the tempestuous relationship of two real brothers rather than two fictional sisters, namely him and Kinks lead guitarist Dave Davies. Running to just 2 minutes 1 second, it is the third song on the band's Something Else album, and has a distinctive sound due to the harpsichord.


Waterloo Sunset
Written by Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, he called this "a romantic, lyrical song about my older sister's generation.


"Waterloo Bridge is in London, and the lyrics are about a guy looking out of a window at two lovers meeting at Waterloo Station. Davies used to cross Waterloo Bridge every day when he was a student at Croydon Art School.


 Ray Davies brought this to the band while they were in the middle of recording the album. He was reluctant to share the lyrics because they were so personal. In a Rolling Stone magazine interview, his brother (and Kinks guitarist) Dave Davies said Ray felt "it was like an extract from a diary nobody was allowed to read."


 It is often claimed that the line, "Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station every Friday night" is about the relationship between actor Terence Stamp and actress Julie Christie. However, Ray Davies denied this in his autobiography. He subsequently revealed that it was "a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world and they were going to emigrate and go to another country."




According to Kinks biographer Nick Hasted, Terry was Ray's nephew Terry Davies, whom he was close to in early teenage years.


 Ray Davies started writing this a few years before The Kinks recorded it. At first, it was called "Liverpool Sunset," but when The Beatles released "Penny Lane" he changed the words so it wouldn't look like a rip-off.


 On February 23, 2003 David Bowie was joined on stage by Ray Davies and performed a duet of this song at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the Tibet House benefit.

 
The perfectionist Ray Davies, before releasing the single, revisited the song's location at sunset to ensure "the atmosphere was right."


 Ray Davies (From Uncut magazine January 2009): "It came to me first as a statement about the death of Merseybeat. But I realized that Waterloo was a very significant place in my life. I was in St. Thomas' Hospital when I was really ill as a child, and I looked out on the river.

I went to Waterloo every day to go to college as well. The song was also about being taken to the Festival of Britain with my mum and dad. I remember them taking me by the hand, looking at the big Skylon tower, and saying it symbolized the future.

That, and then walking by the Thames with my first wife (Rasa, who left Ray, taking his two daughters, in 1973) and all the other dreams that we had. Her in her brown suede coat that she wore, that was stolen. And also about my sisters, and about the world I wanted them to have.

The two characters in the song, Terry and Julie, are to do with the aspirations of my sisters' generation, who grew up during the Second world War and missed out on the '60s.


Sometimes when you're writing and you're really on good form, you get into the frame of mind where you think, I can relate to any of these things. It's something I learned at art school-let all the ideas flow out. But if you listen to the words without the music, it's a different thing entirely. The lyrics could be better. But they dovetail with the music perfectly."

 Popular British singer Paul Weller has said this is his favorite song.


 Ray Davies performed this with Jackson Browne on Davies' 2010 collaborative album See My Friends. In an interview for Daniel Rachel's book The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters, Davies recalled that Browne was taken with a particular lyric: "He said, 'I don't need no friends?' He said it twice. I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'That's the most beautiful thing I've ever had to sing. It doesn't make sense on the page but when you put it with the music...'

I hadn't thought about it that way. The melody takes the curse off the grammar fault. The choice of words, the way they're pronounced, sometimes gives an emotion that's unexpected. Don't is the killer word because it's not correct. Great lines are only great because of what precedes them, maybe sometimes when they happen after."

PatReilly wrote:

Good write up arabchanter: I'm glad you mention Rasa Davies (nee Didzpetris). I hadn't really realised her importance to the Kinks, but to be brief, many of their songs would have sounded very different without her backing vocals..

Something Else illustrates this, songs such as Death of a Clown and Waterloo Sunset benefiting hugely from her softer, ethereal backing. And the Kinks were banned from the States for a number of years, possibly due to Ray marrying a Lithuanian national, thus a potential communist in US eyes. Later, when they were allowed back and lauded by Americans, I think their sound (and certainly the influences) changed......... for the worse.

And Ray and Rasa divorced, she was no longer the fifth Kink, the band's direction took different paths. I always preferred The Kinks when she was involved, but only realised this a few years ago.

Cheers Pat, we'll never know the real reason why they were banned, especially in the "Reds under the beds" paranoia that was going on at the time.

But I did find this, and it looks like they brought a lot of it on themselves, unfortunately;

Although singer Ray Davies has called tales of the Kinks’ American misbehavior “character assassination, [a] plot to destroy us,” sources close to the band confirm that they found trouble wherever they went, at least some of it of their own making. The band skipped a show in Sacramento, Ray Davies punched a union official who kept insinuating that England was already as good as Communist, and they appeared on a Dick Clark special for NBC without paying their mandatory dues to the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists. The upshot was the Federation blacklisted them–although they never gave a specific reason as to why–and the Kinks could not return to the States for over four years. Years later, Davies mused, “In many respects, that ridiculous ban took away the best years of the Kinks’ career when the original band was performing at its peak.”

Last edited by arabchanter (15/11/2017 11:43 am)

arabchanter wrote:

DAY 98.
Donovan............Sunshine Superman    (1967)






Having already established himself as a folk troubadour, Leitch was marching toward an innocent brand of psychedelic pop with "Sunshine Superman."

The title track was a groovy Top Two single on both sides of the Atlantic, while the lengthy "Legend Of A Girl Called Linda" nicely spotlights Leitch's calm voice within a chamber-folk instrumentation of wind and stringed instruments and arpeggiated acoustic guitar.

Love that album.


 

DAY 98.
Donovan............Sunshine Superman    (1967)





"Sunshine Superman" what canna tell ya?
Superb album, I've always liked Donovan but to be honest only related to him through his various hit singles, which were many, and more than well received by me.

This is the first time I have actually listened to a Donovan album, ever, so to say it blew me away would be an understatement.

I listened to it on you tube, and I normally listen to the album but don't pay any particular notice to the lyrics, but most of the tracks actually came with the lyrics, and wow the mans a poet, painter of pictures and raconteur. Every song had for me at least, a delicately woven tapestry that if you allowed yourself could leave you, in another time and place.This album will be going into my collection as I can see myself lying on the old Chaise Longue with the headphones on and just shutting the world out for forty odd minutes.

Although this should have no bearing on my decision to buy his album, I have to confess that in '67 I would have been around 9 years old and my mother (god rest her soul) dressed me in white t-shirt and double denim, and before you ask, yes I had the denim hat just like Donovan's, so with my long hair you could easily see that I might have been quite the catch in primary 5   


Bits & Bobs;


Donovan Leitch is widely regarded as one of the most influential songwriters and recording artists working today. At his induction into the R & R Hall of Fame in 2012 it was stated, “Donovan singlehandedly initiated the Pysychedelic Revolution with Sunshine Superman”. This masterwork album he created late 1965 at 19 years of age, one year before his friends The Beatles, influencing their album Sgt Pepper’s  Lonely heart’s Club Band, and leading the way for many other artists.It is now history that Donovan became the tutor of The Beatles on the famous trip to India, where he taught John, Paul and George the finger style guitar and many of his unique chord patterns, that would create many of the best songs and styles of The White Album.


 Most notable Dear Prudence, Julia (which John asked Donovan to help him write), Blackbird, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and many others on The White Album.


 Donovan encouraged and nurtured George Harrisons songwriting. George in The Beatles Anthology said, “Donovan is all over The White Album”.


 And yet Donovan is much more than the creator of the first Psychedelic Album, Sunshine Superman announced Flower Power for the first time and presented to the world the first World Music fusions of Folk, Classical, Jazz, Indian, Celtic, Arabic and Caribbean. At the age of 16 Donovan set his artist vision, to return Poetry to Popular Culture and he has done so on a worldwide scale. He was 4 years younger than The Beatles, Dylan and The Rolling Stones when he achieved all this.


 As if this is not enough to say, he is chiefly responsible for introducing meditation and Eastern Philosophy into Modern Lifestyle and songwriting.


 As highly influential and successful as Sunshine Superman album was, Donovan had already scored 4 Top Twenty singles, E.P.’s and two albums in his so-called ‘Folk Period’ of early 1965. Donovan received the prestigious Ivor Novella Award for his very first song Catch The Wind at 18 years young. (that needs repeating....18 years old)


 In his first work in 1965 the seeds of what was to come were sown. This was evident on his Classical – Jazz fusion track on his ‘Fairytale’ album of that year, ‘Sunny Goodge Street’. The lyric was first to describe the coming Bohemian Invasion of popular culture, the return of Celtic Philosophy and meditation as the door to The Source.


 Donovan was oddly compared to Bob Dylan when it was Woody Guthrie that both Donovan and Dylan emulated at the time. The true similarity between them is that they are Poets of the highest Order.


 It cannot be overstated that Donovan has displayed the widest variety of songwriting skill, surpassing any songwriter one can name today. The sheer range of his accomplishment is Bardic, empowering our human journey through all stages of life and, most importantly, he displays a  Poets’ true vocation, reuniting us with The Source.


 Donovan in his songs of innocence, has been compared to Blake ,his metaphysical songs to Donne and Herbert, his Celtic songs to Yeats, his children’s songs to Stevenson, his Nonesense songs to Carroll and Lear, his Yoga songs to the Vedic Hymns, his Jazz Classical compositions to Ellington and Lewis, his poetic public appeal to Auden. He also is attributed with writing the first ‘Green Songs’ highlighting the threat to the Ecosystem of our Planet Earth.


 It is clear there is no such composer artist like Donovan, one of the most consummate solo performers of all time.



Popular Irish folk singer Christie Moore started his career by supporting Donovan on some of his 1970s tours. Also, Donovan's daughter Oriole Leitch married and bore the child of Happy Mondays/Black Grape singer Shaun Ryder, a notorious drug addict whom she met when older sister Astrella was living with Ryder's brother and bandmate, Paul.

 Donovan contacted polio as a child. He recalled to Mojo magazine in 2015: "I didn't know that I was different. But I do remember a device that was put on the leg. They cut the Achilles tendon so the foot didn't become a clubfoot. My father kept me with the swimming, and the swimming is what helped. I don't remember having polio as a kid, but maybe it withdrew me from the usual upbringing of kids in Glasgow. I was left on my own a lot."


 He tries to get his songs in as many movies, TV shows and commercials as possible. "I've got more songs in commercials, series, and movies than I believe any other songwriter. I consider it really the new 'super radio.' Commercials are super radio, and I attract a lot of attention from music supervisors who wish to use my music, especially in the film world."


Sunshine Superman


Donovan first met his future wife, Linda Lawrence, in 1965 when she was recovering from a broken relationship with Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones. The pair dated briefly, but not wanting the scrutiny and uncertainty of being a pop star's girlfriend all over again, Lawrence broke it off at the end of the year. Donovan responded with this song.

"It's not a normal love song, the singer told Mojo magazine June 2011. "On the face of it, the song is about being with Linda again. But sunshine is a nickname for acid. The Superman is the person capable of entering higher states because it's not easy to go into the fourth dimension and see the matrix of the universe in which everything is connected.

The line, 'everybody's hustling' referred to the pop scene at the time, where you could lose yourself very easily. Gyp (Mills - Donovan's lifelong friend and tour manager) would always keep my feet on the ground; we had left home at 16 to busk so we could see fame for what it is."


 Donovan was good friends with The Beatles, and they were both making very innovative and trippy music at the time. Donovan's producer Mickie Most told him not to play the Sunshine Superman album to Paul McCartney under any circumstances, because he knew McCartney would be tempted to do something similar.



Donovan recalled to Uncut magazine: "My arse was being sued by Pye after Sunshine Superman so , my masterwork, sat on the shelves for seven months. If you date it, it was at least a year and a half before Sgt Pepper and I remember Mickie saying to me, 'Don't play it to McCartney' but of course everybody was sharing with everyone else and nicking from each other."



"I played it to McCartney anyway," he continued. "But they were already there, anyway, and George Martin was doing something similar with The Beatles, working out arrangements from ideas they had in their heads. George Martin was The Beatles' guy and John Cameron was my guy and they both had an appreciation of jazz which was key."



Originally, the "Sunshine Superman" single was subtitled "For John And Paul," a reference to Lennon and McCartney.


 Jimmy Page played lead guitar on this. Page was a session musician at the time.

Donovan was recording for Pye Records when he was working on this. Pye also had Mickie Most under contract, but he moved to CBS before the album could be released. This prompted a lawsuit that delayed release of the album, so it didn't come out in the US until September 1966, and wasn't released in the UK until 1967. This was unfortunate for Donovan, because this would have been considered much more innovative if it was released on schedule.



This was one of the first ever overtly psychedelic pop records. Donovan played down the drug implications of the song, but they were certainly implied: "Sunshine" was a name for LSD.


 This was Donovan's first collaboration with arranger, musician and jazz fan John Cameron, who developed a new sound for him. Cameron played the harpsichord on this recording.


 In the video for The Beatles "A Day In The Life" you can see a close up of "Sunshine Superman" playing on a spinning turntable.


 Donovan had a fleeting love affair with the model Linda Lawrence in 1965. He bumped into her four years later and they married in 1970. Donovan said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper May 24, 2005, "Linda's in all the songs. 'Sunshine Superman,' 'Hampstead Incident,' 'Young Girl Blues'... Linda's the muse."


 This was the first hit song with the word "Superman" in the title. In later years, Superman appeared in many songs, often as a symbol of inner strength.


  The song was Donovan's only single to reach #1 on the Hot 100 . "Gypsy Dave [Donovan's creative companion] and I went off to Greece with about three quid in my pocket," he recalled to Billboard magazine. "The phone rang, and Ashley Kozak, my manager, said 'Get yourself back to Athens, you've got a first-class ticket to London. 'Superman''s released and it's #1 all over the world.'"


Legend Of A Girl Child Linda;


Donovan first met Linda Lawrence in 1965 when she was recovering from a broken relationship with Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. She and Donovan dated for a short time, but not wanting the scrutiny and uncertainty of being a pop's star girlfriend all over again, Lawrence broke it off at the end of the year. They continued to have an on-off romantic relationship over the next five years, and Linda exerted a huge influence on Donovan's music. They finally married on October 2, 1970 at Windsor Registry Office.



This song finds Donovan exalting his lost girlfriend as an Arthurian heroine. "I realized that we didn't have to copy, that we had our own traditions," said Donovan to Mojo magazine June 2011 of the song. "One night I woke up in a hotel room in Sweden with 'Girl Child' almost fully formed in my head, and I picked up my guitar and started to play it like a harp. The song was about Linda, of course, but it was also about the loss of innocence that Blake wrote about. You create the circumstances for songs to appear and then you catch them, like fish in the net."




William Blake (1757-1827) was a British mystic poet and artist who is best known to many for penning the words to "Jeruselem" His 1789 Songs of Innocence poetry collection eloquently showed how the human spirit blossoms when allowed its own free movement. Unable to find a publisher, Blake and his wife engraved and printed them at home.


Celeste;

This track from Donovan's Sunshine Superman album features Cyrus Faryar of The Modern Folk Quartet on electric violin. Lyrically it finds Donovan  questioning the value of the pop life. "When we made (TV film) A Boy Called Donovan, we went where we were told," the singer said to Mojo magazine June 2011. "Celeste has the line, 'Here I stand, acting like a silly clown,' The spring of success was already over and the critics were slamming me. I was beginning to question it all."


Season of the witch;

One of the first songs to fit the "psychedelic" genre, Donovan recorded it in May 1966, shortly before his highly publicized arrest for possession of marijuana.


 The genesis of this song goes back to an evening at folk music notable Bert Jansch's house in north London, when fellow acoustic master John Renbourn showed Donovan a D ninth chord. From that Donovan built up a riff that, according to the memories of those present, he then played solidly for the next seven hours.



"There was a feeling, even then, that all was not perfect in the Garden of Eden," he said of the song in an interview with Mojo magazine June 2011. "Dealers were moving into bohemia and hard drugs were on the fringes. The song was also prophetic. It was about the bust, although of course I couldn't know that then."


 During Led Zeppelin's soundchecks, they often warmed up by playing this. The song allows for lots of jamming when played live, which makes it a popular cover for many bands.


 This song is ideal for long jams. The two main chords (A and D) are played during the verses, and during the chorus there are three chords (A, D and E). In Mojo magazine, January 2005, Donovan said: "Season of the Witch' continues to be a perennial influence because it allows a jam – not a 12-bar or Latin groove, but a very modern jam. Led Zeppelin used to warm up every day to it on the road during the soundcheck. It makes me very proud that I've created certain forms that other bands can get off on, to explore, be experimental, or just break the rules."


 Donovan's producer was Mickie Most, an interesting character who oversaw many hit records in the '60s and '70s


 Donovan said: "I remember the bass line going down and Mickie saying, 'We've got a problem. The engineers are saying that they can't turn the bass up.' I said, Why? They said, 'Well, it's going into the red.' And so he said to the engineers, 'Look, you go into the red, I'm giving you permission. Go in the red! That's the bass sound I want. Very, very loud.' And they said, 'Well, we'll have to have a meeting.' So they went upstairs and had a meeting about whether the bass should go into the red. And they came down, they said, 'No, I'm sorry, the equipment can't stand it.' So Mickie Most said, 'Look, I've just made a record deal with your boss Clive Davis for $5 million and seven bands. And he's given me $1m right now. So do you think if I phone him up, you'd give me a little bit more bass?' And they looked at each other, and immediately realized that their jobs were on the line. They said, 'OK, you've got more bass.' We got more bass the needle went into the red, the equipment didn't blow up. I guess next time they made that needle, they did that thing by just moving the red bit a bit farther to the right, like in Spinal Tap: 'My amp goes up to 11!'"


This song was covered by Al Kooper (Blood Sweat & Tears, The Blues Project) and Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young) on the historically significant 1968 album Super Session. That gives us an excuse to tell a fun story: Stills was brought in midway through recording the album to replace Mike Bloomfield (Butterfield Band, Electric Flag). Now, Kooper was originally enthusiastic to play with Bloomfield, but Bloomfield had a habit of ditching at the worst possible time. So when he showed up at Al Kooper's house, Bloomfield complained of an infected toe, then proceeded to use the most expensive crystal bowl in the house to soak his toe in.



A photo of this (the toe) ended up on the back cover of the Super Session album. Then Mike Bloomfield simply disappeared in the morning, leaving only a note saying that he'd had insomnia. It wouldn't even be the last time he stood up Al Kooper!



In his memoir Backstage Passes And Backstabbing Bastards, Al Kooper mentions that he's been moved to cover this song after a trip to London, when he'd heard Donovan's "Season of the Witch" coming out of every shop on King's Road.

Fast" Eddie Hoh played drums on this song. He also played drums on the Super Session cover. Eddie Hoh also played percussion for The Mamas & The Papas, The Monkees, and dozens of other acts.

 
Other covers of this very portable song include Vanilla Fudge on a 1960s single and several of their 2000s albums, Luna on a 1996 single, and Joan Jett on her Naked album of 2004.



Many came across the song for the first time in late 2010 after it was used in an ad for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7



This song plays during a pivotal scene in the 1973 George Romero film, Season of the Witch. The film is about a conservative Catholic woman who gets drawn into the '70s occult craze.


Bert Blues

 Donovan wrote this song by way of an apology for his friend and folk music notable Bert Jansch. He explained in an interview with Mojo magazine June 2011: "Bert Jansch was going out with Beverley (Kutner, nee Martyn) at the time, and for a brief while I was part of the triangle, although not in the way Bert thought I was. I wrote the song because I felt bad, as I loved Bert. It also captured everything I was concerned with at the time: jazz, classical, medieval troubadour and folk. (Arranger) John Cameron realized instantly that acoustic instruments would give the album its sound."



Bert Jansch's best known recording is "Needle Of Death" which was hugely influential on the musical and drug habits of many British youth.


Although not on this album, if you can indulge me?

Beautiful;




 

Last edited by arabchanter (16/11/2017 1:20 am)

PatReilly wrote:

Funny how many albums of around this time are, on reflection, put forward as the 'first psychedelic album release', including that Donovan record. 

Nice songs on 'Sunshine Superman', and I recall how folk went on about this album (and the risque 'Mellow Yellow'), but only Season of the Witch stands out for me. People also extolled the virtues of the lyrics, and to an extent Donovan had that measure, for his words could be interpreted in many ways........ which is the beauty of a good lyric.

Mellow Yellow, as an example and not on this album, might have been about drugs, might have been about vibrators and sex, might have been about underage sex (!!!!)...... it was up to you.

Rumour has it that although Jimmy Page played on the Sunshine Superman album, he wasn't the only future Zep involved. John Bonham is reputed to have contributed as well, and this might be a clue as to the references arabchanter makes to the Led Zep sound checks above.

Good Bits & Bobs Pat,  CHEERS!
 

DAY 99.
Merle Haggard............I'm A Lonesome Fugitive   (1967)




Finished listening to this one a couple of minutes ago, like a lot of music, given the right setting and atmosphere this would probably go down a treat.

A few years ago I was invited to a Summer party down south which in escence was a Barn Dance, they had it in a big barn with a C&W band, the seating was hay bales and everyone was asked to wear "shitkicking" clothes, they also hired some people to show us how to line dance, now in that setting It worked great (the free bar also helped it along,) everybody had a fantastic night square/line dancing and generally making total arses of ourselves.

Going to certain parts of the U.S. like for instance Nashville I could see me going with the flow and getting into and enjoying it, but here's the thing sitting in this country on a cold Winters night,  I't really didn't do anything to make me think "that's put me in a right good mood, that's really perked me up"

The tracks were all pretty bland and run of the mill, C&W for me. There seems to be only two tempos in country music, "toe tappin'" and "slow and weepy"

The boy obviously is pretty good at what he does if that's your bag, he had over three dozen Country No1s, but it's not my bag and I wont be putting this album in my collection.


Bits & Bobs;

Country music pioneer Merle Haggard  (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) and his band the Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which touted a rougher edge not heard on the more refined Nashville recordings of the same time period.

 After the death of his father, Haggard’s childhood and early adulthood were troubled and often punctuated by incarceration. After realizing the errors of his ways while sitting in prison, he launched a successful country music career which spanned decades and made him a legend.

  After their barn burned down in 1934, Haggard’s parents, Flossie and James, relocated from Checotah, Oklahoma to California.

  Merle was born in a train boxcar that was converted into a family home where the Haggards lived in California.


Merle Haggard recalled getting his first guitar to Uncut: "My brother was running a filling station, and he took in a guitar and gave a guy a couple of dollars worth of gas when I was about 10. He brought it over to my house and set it there in the closet, and it stayed there for a while. My mother got it out and showed me a couple of chords my dad had showed her. He'd passed away by that time."

  After getting in trouble with the law, 14-year-old Haggard ran away to Texas and rode freight trains and hitchhiked throughout the state.

  Merle’s encounters with death row inmates “Rabbit” and Caryl Chessman inspired him to turn his life around.



 While in prison after a robbery attempt, Haggard got word that his first wife was expecting a child fathered by another man.

  In 1972, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted Haggard a full and unconditional pardon for his past crimes.

 When songwriters sent Haggard the tune “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” which became his first #1 single, they were unaware of his extensive prison record.


Merle defended the Dixie Chicks after they criticized former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He felt that the band had the right to express an opinion and the attackers of the trio were on an unfair ‘verbal witch-hunt.’

 Haggard’s classic “Mama Tried” is featured in the 2003 film “Radio.” “Swingin’ Doors” can be heard in the 2004 film Crash and “Big City” is heard in Joel and Ethan Coen’s cult classic Fargo.

 In 2013, the California State University- Bakersfield, awarded Haggard the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. In response to the honor, Haggard stepped to the podium and said, “Thank you. It’s nice to be noticed.”

 
 

Tek wrote:

Wow,what a write-up for "Sunshine Superman" Mr C.I really enjoyed your take on that album,particulary as you were listening to it with fresh ears.

​Donovan really was a bit of an original imo.

​Could at times sound whimsical and a harp back to the days of story tellers and days of lore.You can almost imagine him playing with a lute in a courtyard somewhere in the 1600's.

​But at other times he dips his toes into eastern waters and was one of the 1st 60's acts to cross over into eastern mysticism and introduce Indian instrumentation and melodies to his tracks (and he done it the best imo and I include The Beatles in that btw).

​Then he goes Folk electric and can produce a pounding psychedelic pop/rock track like "Season of the Witch".

​He really is a talented songwriter and we should be proud as Scots that he's 'one of oor ain'.

Thanks Tek, always good to hear some feedback.

Have to agree the "Maryhill" boy sure knew how to write a song.
 

DAY 100.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience............Are You Experienced   (1967)






Don't know where this disappeared to;


An aura surrounds James Marshall Hendrix to this day. His almost supernatural gifts with electric guitar, and deft control over effects, remain unsurpassed, his playing represents a seismic shift in the use of the instrument at a time when musicians like Eric Clapton were at their height.

His fusion of psychedelia, blues, and funk, his authorship of great songs, his emergance as the pre-eminent black musician in the world of white rock, his addled dandyism, all stunned the Sixties Rock aristocracy.











 

Last edited by arabchanter (17/11/2017 11:40 pm)

Tek wrote:

1967 was a great year for music.

Maybe even the year.

Certainly a stand out year for music and social change, The Summer Of Love and musical innovation seemed to fit hand in glove in '67.

Rock & Roll sat back, and became Rock, in all it's various forms imho.
 

Concur with shedboy: a magnetic thread for music lovers.

But contrary to arabchanter, this is one of the best albums posted so far, to me.  Agreeing that I don't enjoy long guitar solos from many artists, Hendrix is different, for very few other guitarists aside of maybe Robin Trower, can get close to him in style and easy ability. 

While a fan, I can appreciate humour being poked at almost anything: many thought the cover of Are You Experienced by Devo was in very poor taste, and truth be told, the part around 2 minutes 10 seconds in on this video is a bit 'shocking' >




I laughed, right enough.
 

DAY 101.
The Electric Prunes.............. I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)    (1967)




The story of The Electric Prunes is the classic tale of a group plucked from obscurity. a group of friends from Taft High School in LA were practicing in a garage one day, when a passing estate agent heard them and was inspired to introduce the group to her friend, RCA studio engineer Dave Hassinger.

This album sold well on both sides of the Atlantic, certainly equaling sales of contemporaries such as Jefferson Airplane and so, at least at the start The Prunes were viewed as the front runners of the burgeoning West Coast psychedelic scene.  Years later, the large number of copies of their album that became cheaply available in second hand record shops, led to them to becoming a huge influence on garage punk bands of the 1970s such as MC5 and The Stooges.

Last edited by arabchanter (18/11/2017 12:50 pm)