DAY 114.
Leonard Cohen.......The Songs Of Leonard Cohen   (1968)








This album for me is just too dark and dismal at present for me and only listened to the first few tracks, I'm going to put Lenny boy on the subbies bench as I really don't think I would be doing it full justice trying to listen to it objectively at the moment.

Will get back to you on this one.



Bits & Bobs;

Leonard Cohen was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Montreal, Canada. His religion weighed heavily on his childhood: one grandfather was a rabbi who authored a 700-page volume on the Talmud while the other was the founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, a successful garment purveyor, died when Leonard was only nine years old.


 
By age 20 Leonard Cohen was a published poet; while still an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal he won the Chester MacNaughton Prize for Creative Writing for a series of four poems titled "Thoughts of a Landsman." In 1956 his first complete book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published by his former teacher and mentor at McGill, Louis Dudek.


 
Cohen tried his hand at law school and spent a year in the School of General Studies at Columbia University in New York City, but he soon returned to Montreal to pursue his writing. Throughout the 1960s Cohen published various works, including the poetry collections Flowers for Hitler and The Spice-Box of Earth. His 1966 novel Beautiful Losers stirred up controversy over some sexually explicit passages, but the book has remained a perennial favorite of Canadian hipsters and bohemians.


 
In 1969 Leonard Cohen's collection Selected Poems 1956-1968 was chosen for the Governor General's Award for Literary Merit. Given annually to mark Canadian achievement in various academic, artistic and social fields, the award is usually seen as an honor among Canadians. But Cohen refused to accept the award; according to the newspaper The Globe and Mail, he asserted that "the world is a callous place and he would take no gift from it."


 
Seeking a bit of escape, Leonard Cohen disappeared to the Greek Island of Hydra in the early 1960s. Drawn in by the warm climate, beautiful surroundings and international community of writers and artists, he relocated to the island for most of the next eight years. Buying a house for a measly $1,500 - albeit with no running water or electricity - he moved in his lovely Swedish model girlfriend Marianne Ihlen and her young son and spent most of his days swimming, sailing and writing. He only returned to Canada once a year to apply for government grants or sell off a few poems to make the $1,000 he needed to cover his expenses in Hydra for the year.


 
Although he first picked up the guitar as a teenager and was only 17 when he started his first band, The Buckskin Boys, Leonard Cohen was 32 years old and already an established poet before he decided to plunge headlong into the music business. He proceeded undeterred, even when touting his new songs around NYC agents wondered: "Aren't you a little old for this game?" Thankfully his life as a struggling NYC artist was short lived—he was soon introduced to singer Judy Collins who became the first of many artists to cover Cohen's now-famous song "Suzanne."


 
His work soon came to the attention of John Hammond at Columbia Records. Hammond, the man responsible for signing Bob Dylan and later Bruce Springsteen, lunched with Cohen and listened to him work through six or seven songs in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. Within a week Cohen was in a recording studio with Hammond working on his first record. As he began to sing, Hammond shouted "Watch out Dylan!" over the studio intercom.


 
In the mid-'90s Leonard Cohen recoiled from his careers in writing and music, retreating to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles. He spent the next five years practicing Rinzai Zen meditation, often for weeks at a time, and became personal assistant to the center's founder and leader Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi. In a 1998 interview at the Zen Center, he said of his experience there: "Leonard Cohen wouldn't exist without the Roshi. The Roshi accepts everything I bring him - my selfishness, my anger, my ambition, my sins."


 
Leonard Cohen has never been married - "too frightened" he has concluded in several interviews - but he fathered two children in the 1970s with Los Angeles artist Suzanna Elrod. His son Adam is a musician and frontman of the band Low Millions, while his daughter Lorca (named after one of Cohen's favorite writers Federico Garcia Lorca) has done work as a photographer and videographer for her father. In 2010 she gave birth to a daughter, Viva Katherine, with singer Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright announced that "proud parents Lorca Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, and [his partner] Deputy Dad Jorn Weisbrodt" would all be caring for the child (Rufus is gay).


 
In 1986, Leonard Cohen appeared in the "French Twist" episode of Miami Vice. He played laid back French Secret Service agent Francois Zolan.


 
Leonard Cohen writes very slowly due to his painful perfectionism, a trait that led him to originally write 80 verses for "Hallelujah."




"My trouble is that before I can discard a verse I have to polish it first. It takes a long time," he said during a listening session for Old Ideas. "I never feel like I've stopped working. It might look to the marketplace that nothing is happening but the workshop has never shut down."



 
Rufus Wainwright told Spinner about his famous father in law. "He's a family man and a fantastic grandfather," he said. "He plays keyboard with Viva, my daughter, all the time. He lives upstairs so he visits daily. I'm very fortunate to have him around, 'cause a lot of the time, I'm off working and making records and touring. He's been there for his daughter, Lorca, and me."


 
Leonard Cohen started smoking again at the age of 80 after a 30-year break. He stated: "I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been thinking about that for 30 years. It's one of the few consistent strings of thoughts I've been able to locate."


 
Cohen described his sexual appetite as "overpowering." After his 1993 tour, he took various antidepressants, including Prozac, which tamed this appetite. Cohen thought he had reigned in his desires through force of will, but later learned that loss of libido is a side effect of the drug.


 
Leonard Cohen's first novel The Favourite Game was published in 1963 when he was 29. The Favourite Game sold a couple of thousand copies but was hard to find in his native Canada.




His second novel Beautiful Losers was written three years later while Cohen living on a Greek island of Hydra. He had high hopes for Beautiful Losers, but the book sold so poorly that he decided a drastic change of career was called for. He decided to try his hand at songwriting.




"A lot had to do with poverty," Cohen told Rolling Stone. "I was writing books - two novels and four volumes of poetry - and they were being very well received and that sort of thing, but I found it was very difficult to pay my grocery bill. I said, 'Like, it's really happening that I'm starving.'"

shedboy wrote:

Take Care chanter mate!

Thanks, buddy!
 

Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: there are very few folk who couldn't like, or at least identify, with Johnny Cash. Great album.

Eli And The Thirteenth Confession: love the album title, but this stuff just ain't my bag, man. Good looking bird though.

Electric Ladyland: love this, and I could listen to Jimi's solos far beyond arabchanter's 90 second limit. But from music's point of view, it's probably a good thing he died when he did.

The Songs Of Leonard Cohen: pish. If feeling bad, why listen to this stuff?

Now, come to think of it, I'm sure I've written this stuff before.......

Aretha : Lady Soul. I like this kind of music at times, depends on the mood. Drink has to be involved, normally. Chain of Fools is a classic, as is the first track on side two. 
What I mind about records like these is that the favourite tracks got worn down and crackly quicly, while the less popular songs would play perfectly years later.

Vincebus  Eruptun: this is supposed to be the first ever heavy metal album, but it's one that was only recently noticed by me. To be honest, I enjoyed a listen to it, but I wouldn't waste too much time over it thereafter. I only found this band when searching for something psychedelic from that time, I reckon the mid-sixties to early seventies might be my favourite period. 

arabchanter, look after yourself, mind.

Last edited by PatReilly (05/12/2017 11:09 pm)

Sorry but have another funeral this afternoon, so will post today's album and see what shape I'm in later?

DAY 116.
Laura Nyro..........Eli And The Thirteenth Confession    (1968)







Ken what I really wanted to like this one, I don't know why, maybe it's because I think she's a bit of a looker or maybe as I hadn't heard of her I wanted to be cool and say "Laura Nyro, of course I love her, and what a voice" but sadly that's not going to be the case.


I've read Elvis Costello, Elton John, Carol King and Joni Mitchell all loved her work and were inspired in someway by her, but I don't see how. they seemingly loved the way she changed tempo in unusual ways, but for me that was what I didn't like.


To be honest the more I listened to her the more I disliked the album, there is no doubt she has a talent, but with that screechy voice I think it's a talent for being able to beach whales, set your music system up on the beach at the Ferry, and "play this album, and they will come"


I didn't mind the first couple of tracks, but then the voice and the random tempo changes got to me.
This particular album will not be getting added to my collection.



Bits & Bobs;

Out of all the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 2012, the one most likely to cause head-scratching is Laura Nyro, the semi-obscure, Bronx-born singer-songwriter-pianist. Nyro, who died at age 49 in 1997 from ovarian cancer, is best known for the songs she wrote that became hits for others, like “Wedding Bell Blues,” “And When I Die” and “Stoney End.”As an artist, Nyro had one lone pop chart hit in the Top 100 — and that only made it to No. 92. She only had one Top 40 album, “New York Tendaberry,” which rose as high as No. 32.


 Already, there’s talk whether the Rock Hall should have chosen her for inclusion. On a recent “Howard Stern Show,” Gary “Babba Booey” Dell’Abate sneered when he read her name as an inductee (though Stern and Robin Quivers quickly leapt to her defense).


In the Washington Times, Hampton Stevens seemed to find Nyro’s inclusion outright offensive.“There is no more egregious example of Hall voters’ arrogance and pedantry than this year’s selection of Laura Nyro,” he wrote. “Electing Nyro is a gesture of withering arrogance and disdain, one meant to instruct the rock audience on what music it ‘should’ listen to, instead of the stuff people actually like.”

 Some rock fans might not be familiar with Nyro herself, but most don’t need to be instructed to like her songs, because they knew them when they were cut by an array of other artists.When a 19-year-old Laura Nyro emerged on the rock scene in 1967 with her debut album “More Than a New Discovery,” she changed the preconceptions of what any singer-songwriter — much less a female one — could do. In her wake, Todd Rundgren abruptly changed his style and left his band Nazz to release solo albums inspired by Nyro (one song, “Baby, Let’s Swing” is even about her).

 Carole King was so impressed with Nyro’s artistic boldness that King finally got up the gumption to pursue a solo career seriously — one that featured her sitting Nyro-style, behind a piano.

 “I think Laura Nyro does not exist without Carole King the songwriter, but Carole King the singer-songwriter does not exist without Laura Nyro the performer,” says Michele Kort, author of the 2002 Nyro biography “Soul Picnic.” “It was Laura, along with Joni Mitchell, who started the whole singer-songwriter movement Carole King was able to become part of.”

 Other performers who have cited Nyro as an inspiration range from Suzanne Vega to Elton John to Stevie Wonder, whose “If You Really Love Me” is said to be inspired by Nyro’s style. That style attracted a hard-core following of fans who made her a cult figure.

 The rest of the world didn’t always get it, though. As Patricia Romanowski put it in “Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock,” “Whether Nyro’s music offered a seductive challenge or a grating nuisance was the listener’s call.”

 But it was Nyro’s willingness to challenge listeners with unpleasant ideas and difficult music that placed her in the tradition of great rock and roll, not bland pop music, even if her music was often based around piano and voice.

 Nyro’s first album seems a relatively conventional collection of songs now. But at the time, it was the type of musical stew no one else was cooking up. A mélange of pop, rock, Broadway, jazz and folk, Nyro’s tunes could be angry, sexy, desperate, confrontational and confessional — sometimes all at once. (Collectors’ note: For the best listening experience of Nyro’s debut, Nyro collector Dennis R. Weston recommends finding an original mono pressing on the Verve Folkways label and avoiding the repackaged album “The First Songs,” which alters the running order and adds reverb to the mix.)

 “Laura was not someone who copied people,” says veteran arranger and producer Charles Calello, who co-produced Nyro’s second album, “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession” — a commercial but outré record that makes for a good starting point for Nyro neophytes. “She was original in every sense of the word. She set the stage for numerous songwriters to develop their craft because of the freedom she displayed in her music.

 “Her song structure did not conform to the normal verse/chorus kind of song,” he continues. “She had her own style of playing chords. Her style of chords was copied by Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, even Elton John.”

 That “freedom” was what bewildered a lot of listeners who bought albums like “Eli” thinking they were going to get conventional folk-pop, but instead got complex music with changes in tempo and mood.

 Nyro’s career reached an apex of sorts with her third album, “New York Tendaberry,” from 1969, her lone Top 40 album. It’s an adventurous, uncompromising, emotionally intense work. The scorned-woman epic “Tom Cat Goodbye” blows through a multitude of musical sections (none of which is repeated) before Nyro unleashes banshee wails that could send death-metal fans running for cover. “Captain for Dark Mornings” seems to be sung from the point of view of a prostitute, while “Captain St. Lucifer” is a love song that’s as audacious as it is catchy. “Tendaberry,” along with “Eli,” is arguably Nyro’s best work and is among the great albums of the 1960s.

 But a funny thing happened around the time Nyro started alternately seducing and scaring listeners. Producers and artists started riffling through her song catalog, and Nyro became the hot composer to cover.

 The 5th Dimension took “Stoned Soul Picnic” to No. 3, “Sweet Blindness” to No. 13 and then “Wedding Bell Blues” to No. 1.

 Blood, Sweat & Tears took the first song Nyro ever wrote, “And When I Die” to No. 2 (its founder, Al Kooper, also purportedly asked Nyro to front the ensemble).


Three Dog Night got to No. 10 with “Eli’s Coming,” and Barbra Streisand got to No. 6 with “Stoney End” (for which she named an album) and had minor hits with “Save the Country” and “Flim Flam Man.”

 There are so many covers of Nyro songs, in fact, that members of the Laura Nyro Facebook group regularly surprise even her most ardent fans with newly-discovered renditions of her songs.

 Yet the question remains as to why Nyro never hit with her own songs. Her only Top 100 entry came with a cover of the Gerry Goffin-Carole King tune “Up on the Roof.” Her own rendition of “Wedding Bell Blues” charted highly on some West Coast stations’ playlists, but it stalled on the Bubbling Under chart.

 “I think it was her voice,” Kort says. “It was either a taste you had or a taste you didn’t. So instead, people went for the blandness of the 5th Dimension or any of those other artists.”

 Calello agrees: “Although she sang brilliantly, most of the critics did not like the sound that she as a female made, singing in that high falsetto range.”

 Calello also believes Nyro didn’t tour enough, and when she did, her solo piano performances weren’t the kind of extroverted affairs needed to get her beyond cult status.


“Later on I got to understand that Laura was afraid to perform,” he says. “She was a very introverted kind of performer — very soft spoken.”

 Nyro kept a lower profile after “Tendaberry,” but the artistic quality of her albums remained high. “Christmas and the Beads of Sweat” pioneered the kind of art songs for which Kate Bush and Tori Amos later became famous. “Gonna Take a Miracle,” cut with a pre-fame Labelle, is possibly the first multi-artist covers album cut by a major artist.

 Nyro retired for a while, then returned in 1976 with the jazzy “Smile.” Her profile was so low key by this point that few people heard her next two records, the underrated “Nested” and “Mother’s Spiritual.” The final album released in Nyro’s lifetime, 1993’s “Walk the Dog and Light the Light,” showed she could still write a classic (“A Woman of the World” ranks among her best songs) and also found her growing more political.

 After Nyro’s death, it was discovered she’d spent the last two decades of her life with a female lover, which makes her one of a handful of gay or bisexual performers to be inducted into the Rock Hall.

 “Laura never came out — she was ‘outed’ posthumously in her obit,” explains Kort. “I think it’s fair to call her bisexual, because she certainly had relationships with men (including Jackson Browne), and then she had a long-term relationship with a woman.”

 Interest in Nyro’s music also grew after her death. Kort’s biography helped to spread the word. The Internet made it easier to find her music, and several theatrical productions showcasing her songs were produced. Kort believes it was Elton John’s championing of Nyro on a 2008 episode of the Sundance Channel show “Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…” that really revived interest in Nyro.

 “I think her getting an imprimatur from a male artist who is rock royalty was the turning point,” Kort says.Nyro’s influence on female artists cannot be overstated, she adds.“She just really inspired young women artists to go for it. She came from a background with all these different influences, and people didn’t think you could put all those things in your music,” Kort says. “But Laura did, so other artists would say ‘I don’t have to hold back I can put it all in there.’ ”

Day 117.
Aretha Franklin.............Aretha : Lady Soul    (1968)








Lady Soul for me is standard Aretha Franklin, you know what you're gonna get .......... superb vocals, great arrangements, a great choice of tunes and a solid, polished performance from all involved.


It opens up well with the excellent Don Covay song  "Chain Of Fools," standout tracks for me were, "People Get Ready," "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,"  "Since You've Been Gone (SweetSweet Baby,)"  the aforementioned "Chain Of Fools," and my personal favourite "Good To Me As I Am To You"


The emotions that emanate from Aretha Franklin must move you, and if you're not moved then God rest your soul.
In saying this I have already put an Aretha Franklin album in my collection that I personally think just beats this one, so wont be putting this one in, but wouldn't bet on not putting it in at a later date.


See post,  #405 for Bits & Bobs.


A little bit about some of the tracks



Chain Of Fools


This was written around 1953 by Don Covay, an R&B singer who wrote songs that were recorded by The Rolling Stones ("Mercy Mercy), Wilson Pickett ("I'm Gonna Cry"), Otis Redding ("Think About It") and many others. Covay also recorded the song, but his version went nowhere.




The song is about a woman who realizes she is one of many girls in her boyfriend's "Chain." Even though she knows this can never last, she sticks with him anyway.


This won a Grammy for Best Female R&B Performance in 1969. That category was introduced in 1968, and Franklin won the first 8 years, adding 3 more in the '80s.



Joe South played the guitar intro. A prominent session guitarist, he also wrote several hit songs, including "Hush," which became a hit for Deep Purple.


The first track from Lady Soul is the deeply soulful “Chain of Fools”, written by RnB legend Don Covay. “Chain of Fools” starts with a simple, bluesy guitar riff from Joe South before Franklin, her back-up singers “The Sweet Inspirations”, along with Franklin’s sisters Carolyn and Erma and Ellie Greenwich and her full band blow the roof off the place, with a slinking, sexy soul romp. The power in Franklin’s gliding high above her powerful backing band is raw and unfettered. The backing band itself contains some of the greatest studio musicians of the time, including members of the Fame Studio session players of the famed Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals Alabama.


What is most remarkable about “Chain of Fools” is not just Franklin’s vocals on it, but the power and skill of Franklin’s back-up singers. Her younger sister Carolyn did many of the vocal arrangements herself, and arguably helped shape Aretha’s sound just as much as producer Jerry Wexler and engineer Tom Dowd. Every nuanced call and response was orchestrated perfectly. Aretha’s older sister Erma adds a resonant, low, husky tone to “Chain of Fools” that counterbalances Carolyn’s and The Sweet Inspirations’ tones masterfully. The Sweet Inspirations are so tight and crisp that it brings Aretha’s high sass vocals into focus.

Lady Soul really is a complete album in a time where most albums were done live to tape in the studio.




"You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman"


This was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. They were a married couple who worked out of the famous Brill building in New York City, where many hits from the '60 were written and recorded. Ode Records owner Lou Adler, who worked closely with King and Goffin, said: "Gerry Goffin is one of the best lyricists in the last 50 years. He's a storyteller, and his lyrics are emotional. 'Natural Woman,' 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.' These are perfect examples of situations, very romantic, almost a moral statement. Coming out of the 1950s, with the type of bubble gum music, and then in 1961, Gerry is writing about a girl who just might let a guy sleep with her and she wants to know, 'is it just tonight or will you still love me tomorrow?' Goffin could write a female lyric. If he could write the words to 'Natural Woman,' that's a woman speaking. Gerry put those words into Carole's mouth. He was a chemist before he was a full time lyricist. He's very intelligent and obviously emotional."



Regarding the origins of the song, Adler added: "Last year (2007) I spoke to Jerry Wexler at his home in Florida, and he told me the story that Gerry was coming out of a building in New York, (Goffin now remembers it as an Oyster House), and Jerry Wexler is passing in a car, and yells out, 'Why don't you write a song called 'Natural Woman'?' They felt the title was so distinct and so important to the song that they gave him a piece of it. So, when I spoke to Jerry recently to call him on his 90th birthday, he said, 'Isn't it amazing what those kids gave me? The checks keep coming in and I'm really happy about it.' Knowing how much he added to the song, not really as a third writer but the title and the inspiration of what was to be, a great song."


 
The recording features the vocal talents of three Franklin sisters - Erma and Carolyn are singing in the background. Erma had a record deal in the '60s, but didn't have much success. Her biggest hit was the 1967 song "Piece Of My Heart."


 
Carole King recorded her own version of this song on her 1971 Tapestry album.


 
When Aretha Franklin performed this song in tribute to Carole King at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors, she brought the house down, wowing King and the many luminaries present, including Barack and Michelle Obama. The crowd rose to its feet as Franklin shed her fur coat to belt out the end of the song.


“You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman” is as close to perfection as a song can come. The slow, languid piano played by famed piano man Spooner Oldham, the backing girls’ light touch, the rainy day drums, then King’s arrangement, which allows Franklin to build, and build, into a majestic melody and bombastic, life-affirming chorus – it’s pure magic.


 

I'm a wee bit out of kilter, and might have mentioned some of this:

The Byrds, never liked them.

Laura Nyro, never heard of her, and after listening, it was no great personal loss.

Aretha, I enjoy, especially when drink has been taken.

Big Brother and the Holding Company: never much was moved by them (basically, I don't favour American music, while recognising its influence)

Blue Cheer: I've had a CD copy of this for years, but rarely listen. Only picked it up because I'd read it was the first ever heavy metal album. 

Well done for keeping this going, especially right now, arabchanter.

Day 121.
The United States Of America...........The United States Of America     (1968)







A registered Communist starts a band called The United States Of America and lands a major record deal before playing a single live gig? Only in the 60s.


After studying with avant-garde legend JOHN cage in New York City, composer Joseph Byrd moved to LA in 1967 and decided to form a psychedelic rock band. His first recruit was ex-girlfriend Dorothy Moskowitz, whose icy vocals formed the perfect compliment for the trippy sonic experiments Byrd had in mind. The band recorded only one self-titled album before dissolving, but it was a memorable one.

DAY 122.
Dr John,The Nite Tripper...........Gris Gris     (1968)






We can thank Sonny and Cher for the landmark in New Orleans funk. While filming a TV special in the autumn 1967, the pair bequeathed some of the studio time they had block booked at Gold Star in LA to one of their session musicians, Malcolm Robert Rebennack, a journeyman piano and guitar player from New Orleans.


Rebennack was toying with a project based around a real-life voodoo preacher called Dr John Creaux. He had approached the singer Ronnie Baron to play the Dr John role, but Baron's manager warned him to "stay away from that voodoo stuff"


After much persuasion from his percussionist, Richard "Didimus" Washington, Rebennack reluctantly took on the role himself, fronting a band of fellow New Orleans natives exiled in LA.  
 

Day 120.
Big Brother And The Holding Company    (1968)






Just finished listening to this album, have got to say not quite as good as I had hoped.

Sharing lead vocals didn't really help this album in my humble opinion, when you have someone like Joplin you shouldn't be thinking about anyone else on lead vocals.

To be honest "Piece Of My Heart" and to a certain extent "Summertime" were the only tracks I would personally rate and want to hear more than once, so apart from Joplin's gritty and sometimes bloodcurdling vocals, the rest of the album left me a bit flat.

The album cover is a classic, The cover was drawn by underground artist Robert Crumb after the band's original cover idea, a photo of the group naked in bed together, was vetoed by Columbia Records. Crumb had originally intended his art for the LP back cover, with a portrait of Janis Joplin to grace the front. But Joplin—an avid fan of underground comics, especially the work of Crumb—so loved the Cheap Thrills illustration that she demanded Columbia place it on the front cover.

I wish the album was even the slightest bit better than I found it, as I love that album art and would love to see that cover in my collection, but unfortunately it wasn't, so I wont.



Bits & Bobs;


Significant in the fact that they launched the career of one JANIS JOPLIN, San Francisco’s BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY were pivotal in the Haight-Ashbury scene which produced other SF outfits, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE and GRATEFUL DEAD. But at the peak of BB’s prowess (late in 1968), JOPLIN left the band for a somewhat shadowy solo career, only to die of a heroin overdose in the space of a few years.



Founded by guitarist Sam Andrew and bassist Peter Albin; Dave Eskerson (guitar) and Chuck Jones (drums) were superseded by fellow scribers James Gurley and David Getz between late ’65 and early ’66, the tight blues quartet were at first wary of promoter Chet Helms insistence on taking in passionate Texan belter Janis Joplin, who’d just turned down an opportunity to join The 13th FLOOR EVEVATORS.



Duly inking a deal with Chicago-based Mainstream Records in the fall of ‘66, the restructured quintet turned in an excellent Monterey Pop Festival performance just prior to releasing their eponymous debut album. BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY (1967) {*6} was marred somewhat by its poor production values, although it still managed to register a Top 60 position. Folk, psychedelia, R&B, country-blues and nostalgia played a huge part in the fabric of the set, respective genres finding their roots via `Easy Rider’, `Blindman’, `Women Is Losers’, `Call On Me’ and `Bye, Bye Baby’. Underachieving in the hit singles department, the set belatedly unearthed a couple by way of the year-old `Down On Me’ and trad-folk cue `Coo Coo’; Mainstream exploited the fact they’d moved on to Columbia Records.



It would be Janis’s gritty and cathartic live prowess that caught the attention of Columbia, who subsequently released the classy CHEAP THRILLS (1968) {*8} LP. Peaking at No.1 for a total of 7 weeks, this roughshod, and at times ramshackle affair (producer John Simon took his name off the credits), nevertheless captured the tremendous vocal talent of JJ. Soul-wrenching numbers such as Top 20 smash `Piece Of My Heart’ (rivalling ERMA FRANKLIN’s take), BIG MAMA THORNTON’s `Ball And Chain’ (all 9 minutes of it) and the mind-blowing acid-take of Gershwin’s `Summertime’ were top-drawer blues.




JOPLIN’s star rating outstripped her backing band at a rate of knots, and it was inevitable that she would take off for a solo career; taking with her Sam Andrew. This all but killed off any further success for the remaining band. However, BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING CO. re-grouped in August ’69; Getz and Albin enlisting the aid of singer Nick Gravenites, guitarist Mike Prendergast and pianist Ted Ashburton, before, yes, you guessed it, they split again; Getz choosing to back JOPLIN in the Nu Boogaloo Express.

 Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. She was a bright young girl and an excellent student. In high school, Janis joined the Glee Club and the Future Teachers of America.



Joplin wasn’t very popular in school and was often bullied. Former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson attended high school with Janis and mercilessly teased her. She became a small-town rebel in response, choosing to color her hair and hang out in blues bars.


 
Janis spent one semester in college, but she dropped out after cruel treatment by her fellow students. She was voted “Ugliest Man on Campus” by Texas University fraternities, a label that bothered her for the rest of her short life. 



 Southern Comfort enjoyed having an unofficial representative in Janis. Her bottle was so omnipresent that the company gifted her with a lynx coat for all of the free advertising and boosted sales. 



Janis met no shortage of male admirers in the entertainment world. She smashed a bottle of Southern Comfort over Jim Morrison’s head (what a waste). He was smitten: “What a great woman! She’s terrific!” Morrison retrieved Janis’ phone number from her producer. Janis wasn’t interested in Jim, who was majorly bummed out over the rejection.


 
Janis never enjoyed hallucinogenic drugs, which may have been why she didn’t dig Morrison. She stuck with alcohol until turning to heroin (with which she overdosed in 1970).



 Leonard Cohen famously wrote about Janis as his mystery lover in the “Chelsea Hotel No. 2″ song. Actually, it’s not such a mystery: “You told me again you preferred handsome men / But for me you would make an exception / And clenching your fist for the ones like us / Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty/ You fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind / We are ugly but we have the music.”


  Janis was a devoted student of Kenpo Karate. She earned a third-degree black belt.


 
Amy Adams will play Joplin in an upcoming biopic, and the role was a hotly contested one for years. Zooey Deschanel played Joplin in Gospel According to Janis.


 
 Janis didn’t believe music should be about making money, but she owned a Porsche. Several years prior to this purchase, she hitchhiked to San Francisco to escape college and join the hippie movement.
 [img]https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr02/2013/1/18/10/enhanced-buzz-7558-1358522945-0.jpg?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto[/img] The 1965 Porsche Cabriolet resides at the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.


Joplin was arrested for using “vulgar and indecent language” during a performance in Tampa, Florida in 1969.



 
You could have watched Joplin perform at Woodstock for a mere $8 (the cost of a day ticket). She pocketed $7500 to perform at the entire event.



  Believe it or not, Janis only had one hit song during her career: “Me and Bobby Mcgee.” The song hit number one on the Billboard charts in 1971 (one year after her death).
It was the second posthumous single in the U.S. after Otis Redding's "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay".





Janis was terribly lonely in spite of rarely being alone. She admitted to keeping many lovers but remaining a creature of solitude: “Onstage, I make love to 25,000 people — then I go home alone.”






 Billie Holiday influenced Janis, who carried around Holiday’s biography (Lady Sings the Blues) “like a bible.” Janis carried the book around during her entire adult life.





 Janis earned the nickname “Pearl” from her best friends, so she used the word as the title of her final album. She crafted her last will in testament mere days before her death. She left her buddies $1500 to throw a rowdy drinking party.


  After her death, Joplin’s ashes were scatted across the Pacific Ocean by airplane. Only her parents and aunt were allowed to attend the private funeral service.

shedboy wrote:

Listen to Janis solo - Pearl is a darn fine example.  I agree this to an extent but have you heard ball and chain live at woodstock? fuck me - youtube it

Will give it a listen
 

DAY 122.
Dr John,The Nite Tripper...........Gris Gris     (1968)






Well I've heard of Dr John, but I've never listened to him and to be honest wasn't in any rush to hear this album.

I done something I try hard not to do and pre-judged this album, I don't think I have heard Dr John before but I have seen lots of pictures of him, and I had his music down as hippy trippy pish by only looking at him, shame on me, but in reality it turned out to be a trip down the Bayou into some voodoo vengence mixed in with some Louisiana laissez-faire.

To be honest there is not one track I can say didn't appeal to me, in fact I've just played it back to back four times, and for me it's getting better with every play. I'm hoping it's not got some voodoo shenanigans, that's making me like it, because this album for me is my best find so far in the book, there have been better albums, but none that I hadn't heard before.

I implore anyone who reads this, to clear your head and listen to this album I really don't think you'll be disappointed.

As you no doubt have gathered this will most certainly be going into my collection.


Bits & Bobs;



Where the name came from – Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., “Mac” was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Although he came from the predominantly middle class 3rd Ward, growing up in the Crescent City surrounded him with Louisiana voodoo culture. At one point, he found that a distant family member had been arrested, along with a Senegalese prince, named Jean Montanet, AKA John Montaine, AKA “Doctor John,” for running a voodoo operation out of a whorehouse in the mid 1800s. Montanet’s specialty was as a healer, selling gris-gris protection amulets. After his move to Los Angeles in the 1960s, Rebennack, always the showman, adopted the stage persona of Dr. John Creaux The Night Tripper. His debut album release in 1968 was appropriately titled, Gris-Gris.


His early influences – Almost everyone in Rebennack’s family, it seemed, played piano and his Aunt Andre taught him to play as well. However, guitar was his first love, and he was good at it, learning licks from local guitarists including Earl King. He also started young, both writing and composing. He wrote his first song at age 14, and while still in Louisiana, wrote songs for, and accompanied artists including Art Neville, Joe Tex, Frankie Ford, Allen Toussaint, and his personal hero, Professor Longhair. At the age of 16, he was hired as an A&R man by Johnny Vincent, for his Ace Records label. The youngest in history, his record stands to this day.


Injury and instrument change – Prior to a show, a motel manager was pistol whipping Mac’s long-time friend and lead vocalist, Ronnie Barron, over a tryst that Barron was having with his wife. Rebennack stepped in, tried to get the gun away from the man, put his hand over the barrel and the man shot, nearly taking the ring finger of Mac’s left hand completely off. Although emergency surgery saved his finger, it healed at an awkward angle, making it difficult to fret a guitar. He did play bass for a short time, but eventually concentrated on piano and organ.


The seedy side of the Big Easy – Although already a successful songwriter, musician and producer, Dr. John did live on the wild side of the music scene. A heroin habit, which had him in its grip until 1989, helped his removal from Jesuit High School. His bands played in bucket of blood joints and strip clubs along Canal Street and Jackson Avenue. For a time in the 1950s, he even ran a brothel, and sold narcotics, which got him a two year sentence in federal prison. ” It was pretty great,” he would later say of the gut bucket music scene. “We worked 365 days a year, 12 hours a night, and did sessions during the day. I’ve always thought that my chops were a lot better then than they ever have been since.”


Wild times as the Night Tripper – When performing as Dr. John The Night Tripper, Rebennack’s shows were over the top elaborate. He would, much like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, appear on stage in a puff of smoke, dressed in elaborate costumes reminiscent of Mardi Gras, with beads, feathers and bones. Sometimes only in body paint. His lyrics contained voodoo chants, and he would douse the audience in glitter. There were snakes and gris-gris dancers. For some time a man named Prince Kiyama toured with the band, and during the performance would bite the head off a live chicken and drink the blood. That all came to a screeching halt when they were arrested after a show in St. Louis, Missouri for “lewd and lascivious performance and cruelty to animals.” In his own unique version of the language, Dr. John later described it as, “another one of my rocket scientifical ideas.”


Session work – For a short time after his arrival in Los Angeles, Dr. John was a member of the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra, better known today as The Wrecking Crew. They were a group of A-list session musicians that backed nearly every record coming out of Southern California in the 1960s. Other notable musicians from crew included Carol Kaye, Tommy Tedesco,Leon Russelll, and Glen Campbell. Always highly sought after for session work, Rebennack has appeared on albums by Canned Heat, the Rolling Stones, James Taylor and Carly Simon, Papa John Creach, Van Morrison, Leon Redbone, BB King, Levon Helm, Gregg Allman, Maria Muldaur, and many others. He also appeared on The Last Waltz, singing, “Such a Night,” from his hit 1973 album, In the Right Place.


Influence in pop culture – Dr. John is an influential character, to say the least. One of the lyrics from his most recognized song, “Right Place, Wrong Time,” was the inspiration for the title of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer album, Brain Salad Surgery, in 1973. He wrote, and originally sang the, “Love That Chicken,” jingle for Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits. Although written by Steve Geyer and Mike Post, the title song, “My Opinionation,” for the 90s sitcom, Blossom, was performed by Dr. John. The highly recognized Bonnaroo Musical Festival takes its name from Mac’s 1974 album, Desitively Bonnaroo.
He also partly inspired the Muppets character, Dr. Teeth, leader of the all muppet band, The Electric Mayhem.


First ever BMA – Dr. John has been nominated for a dozen Grammy awards over the course of his career, and has won six of them. Let the record show, however, that the very first W C Handy Award for Blues Album of the Year in 1980, went to Professor Longhair’s, Crawfish Fiesta, on which Dr. John played guitar.


The Katrina aftermath – Although Rebennack had relocated to New York some years earlier, the destruction that Hurricane Katrina wrought on his beloved hometown in 2005, left him angry with the politicians and devastated by their lack of concern. Only days after the storm, he performed the Bobby Charles song, “Walkin’ to New Orleans,” to close the Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast telethon which raised money for the Red Cross and Salvation Army relief efforts. In November of that year, he released the 4 song EP, Sippiana Hericane, to benefit the New Orleans Musicians Clinic, Salvation Army, and the Jazz Foundation of America. He also led the way in raising funds to assist displaced musicians.


His first gig ever – Young Malcolm Rebennack’s first gig wasn’t musical. His mother, a fashion model herself, got his cherubic face on boxes of Ivory Soap. Hard to believe that, looking at his rather imposing figure now.


“I Walk on Gilded Splinters” is the best known song of the album having been covered by numerous artist including Paul Weller, The Allman Brothers, and Humble Pie just to name a few. Dr. John’s version though plays as a kind of church hymn that you would hear at a pagan sacrifice. I don’t mean to say that the song sounds demonic in any way. In fact, the song has some joyous undertones, but against the juxtaposition of the moaning piano and voodoo chants, it leaves the listener with an uneasy feeling. The song “Mama Roux” is a funky celebration of the darker side of New Orleans. The song sets you in a dark smoke filled room with the smell of catfish frying in the air. The whole album is a wonderful work of dark genius, and as such, it’s best taken in as a whole.