PatReilly wrote:

Can you no' just tear the jazz pages out the book, arabchanter?

And I see you are buying some of these albums after listening: is this on vinyl, and if so, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.

Enjoyed the wee listen to BB King, know a lot of that stuff anyway. The true King of Blues.

On another note, I also read the blurbs you are writing on each artist, I know it's mostly copy and paste, but I wouldn't see it otherwise: some interesting information.

 

Would love to Pat, but promised my eldest I'd at least attempt to listen to every album.

Yes I'm going full circle, both my kids only buy vinyl now as they have record players in their rooms.
I'm still using CD's but about to invest in a record player again, It doesn't feel right listening to these albums on something that didn't exist when they came out.
Unfortunately vinyl comes at a price, so will be slowly adding them.

Copying and pasting is the only way to go for me, if I had to write it all, It would takr me that long I'd only get one done a week, so it would probably not get finished before I left this mortal coil.
The triv about the artists is one of my favourite bits (even about the artists I don't like) i've learnt quite a bit of shit to bore people with.

Once again thanks for your input Pat 

Rubber Soul is my second favourite Beatles album, but has one of my top Lennon songs on it: In My Life. 

Great melody, and touching, personal lyrics in which most people can surely find their own comfort. 

Some time after Lennon had been murdered, McCartney claimed he had written the music for the song. I don't think that was the case.

DAY 55.
The Beatles..........Rubber Soul   (1965)





As I mentioned earlier my brother had all The Beatles  albums, but this one I think must have been his favourite as (in my minds eye) this seems the most familiar to me.

Every track on this album I seem to know off heart, maybe it's because of the airplay over the years, but I would like to think it was from good memories of growing up in a family that didn't mind blasting out music, in spite of and in some cases because of neighbours protestations .

I will be adding "Rubber Soul" to my collection, not just because of sentimentality but because it's a bloody fine album.

Some bits and bobs

This album illustrates many remarkable Beatles facts. The album was made in one month, with recording sessions spanning October 12 to November 11, 1965. The working title for the LP was The Magic Circle, but a McCartney remark in the studio about "plastic soul" (actually made during a session for "I'm Down") morphed into "rubber soul," an allusion to soul music even though the LP didn't really demonstrate this style of music as opposed to "I'm Down."


George Martin commented that Rubber Soul showed a completely different side of the Beatles, who with this album began a long period of experimentation. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys noted the coherence the album seemed to have, which inspired him to do Pet Sounds, which in turn inspired McCartney to suggest Sgt. Pepper's. The Beatles were now using the sitar, harmonium, and fuzz bass, together with their traditional instruments. (McCartney began playing a Rickenbacker bass, which was used on most of the tracks.)


Martin also says that this album marks the time period when McCartney became more than a bit overbearing, requiring numerous takes for his songs and asking others, such as Harrison, to try parts over and over again, only to do the riffs himself in the end. As Martin said, McCartney was becoming an arranger and sound engineer as well as a composer.
In October 1965, we started to record the album.

Things were changing. The direction was moving away from the poppy stuff . The early material was directly relating to our fans, saying, 'Please buy this record,' but now we'd come to a point where we thought, 'We've done that. Now we can branch out into songs that are more surreal, a little more entertaining.' And other people were starting to arrive on the scene who were influential. Dylan was influencing us quite heavily at that point.
Paul McCartney


I think In My Life was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life, and it was sparked by a remark a journalist and writer in England made after In His Own Write came out. I think In My Life was after In His Own Write... But he said to me, 'Why don't you put some of the way you write in the book, as it were, in the songs? Or why don't you put something about your childhood into the songs?'
John Lennon


The album's most celebrated musical part, however, was George Martin's piano solo for In My Life. This was taped at half speed, then when played back at a normal rate sounded similar to a harpsichord.Martin originally tried the solo on a Hammond organ, which didn't give the desired effect. He then switched to a piano, performing the celebrated solo slower and an octave lower than it sounds on the final version.
I did it with what I call a 'wound up' piano, which was at double speed - partly because you get a harpsichord sound by shortening the attack of everything, but also because I couldn't play it at real speed anyway. So I played it on piano at exactly half normal speed, and down an octave. When you bring the tape back to normal speed again, it sounds pretty brilliant. It's a means of tricking everybody into thinking you can do something really well.
George Martin
Sounds Of The Sixties, BBC Radio 2


I think the title Rubber Soul came from a comment an old blues guy had said of Jagger. I've heard some out-takes of us doing I'm Down and at the front of it I'm chatting on about Mick. I'm saying how I'd just read about an old bloke in the States who said, 'Mick Jagger, man. Well you know they're good - but it's plastic soul.' So 'plastic soul' was the germ of the Rubber Soul idea.
Paul McCartney


    The cover artwork


I liked the way we got our faces to be longer on the album cover. We lost the 'little innocents' tag, the naivety, and Rubber Soul was the first one where we were fully-fledged potheads
George Harrison
Anthology

The cover photograph for Rubber Soul was taken by Robert Freeman, who had first worked with The Beatles on the cover of With The Beatles in August 1963

‘The Thick of It’ and ‘Lewis’ star Rebecca Front’s father, designer Charles Front was the illustrator who designed the lettering of the ‘Rubber Soul’ album.

 
The album cover is another example of our branching out: the stretched photo. That was actually one of those little exciting random things that happen. The photographer Robert Freeman had taken some pictures round at John's house in Weybridge. We had our new gear on - the polo necks - and we were doing straight mug shots; the four of us all posing. Back in London Robert was showing us the slides; he had a piece of cardboard that was the album-cover size and he was projecting the photographs exactly onto it so we could see how it would look as an album cover. We had just chosen the photograph when the card that the picture was projected onto fell backwards a little, elongating the photograph. It was stretched and we went, 'That's it, Rubber So-o-oul, hey hey! Can you do it like that?' And he said, 'well, yeah. I can print it that way.' And that was it.
Paul McCartney


The distinctive lettering, meanwhile, was designed and drawn by Charles Front, a London-based art director who was approached to work on the album by Robert Freeman. It became much-imitated by other artists in the flower power era, although Front was never credited for his contribution.


Whether the Beatles were into LSD or not I don't know but I certainly wasn't. It was all about the name of the album. If you tap into a rubber tree then you get a sort of globule, so I started thinking of creating a shape that represented that, starting narrow and filling out. I was paid 26 guineas and five shillings.
Charles Front


In 2007 the lettering was auctioned by Bonhams, with a guide price of £10,000, after lying in a drawer for 42 years in Front's attic.
To me it was just another piece I'd done and I had put it away and forgotten about it. When I took it down to Bonhams I went on the underground with it in a carrier bag. When I came back after discovering its value I was absolutely clutching it in a case.
Charles Front‘


Rubber Soul’ was the catalyst that inspired ‘Pet Sounds’After hearing ‘Rubber Soul’, Brian Wilson was spurred to compete with Lennon and McCartney.

Wilson said;
“Rubber Soul blew my mind. When I heard Rubber Soul, I said, ‘That’s it. That’s all. That’s all folks.’ I said, ‘I’m going to make an album that’s really good, I mean really challenge me.’ I mean, I love that fucking album, I cherish that album.
In the same spirit of creative competition, ‘Pet Sounds’ itself inspired the Beatles to aim higher with ‘Sgt. Pepper’.

Paul McCartney wrote;
“Pet Sounds blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I’ve just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life… I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard that album…it may be going overboard to say it’s the classic of the century…but to me, it certainly is a total classic record that is unbeatable in many ways… I’ve often played Pet Sounds and cried. I played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence.”




 

Last edited by arabchanter (04/10/2017 12:00 am)

DAY 56.
Bert Jansch...........Bert Jansch    (1965)




I recognise the name, and knew he was a folk singer , but have never heard any of his stuff.

I didn't realise he was Scottish, born in Glasgow.

Bert Jansch began playing his personal mix of folk, blues, and jazz on the folk club scene of the early 1960's, having hitchhiked  down from Scotland to London. His eponymous debut album was released in April 1965, on the opening day of the now famous Les Cousins in London's Soho. Performed on borrowed guitars and recorded with portable equipment in freelance producer Bill Leaders's flat in Canden Town, it was sold for the modest sum of £100 (and no royalties) To Nat Joseph, founder of Transatlantic Records.

With it's inovative guitar technique and strong material, the album caused a sensation, and it has remained deeply infuential ever since. Many of the songs were covered by other singers of the era, including Donavan, Julie Felix and Marianne Faithful, while guitarists including Jimmy Page, Neil Young Johnny Marr, and Noel Gallacher have acknowledged it's impact on them.


But it's reputation does not rest exclusively on Jansch's musicianship, it's beauty lies also in his lyricism.,

Last edited by arabchanter (04/10/2017 10:41 am)

DAY 56.
Bert Jansch...........Bert Jansch    (1965)




Bert Jansch, I can't say I was disappointed as I really had nothing to guage it against, as I really haven't listened to much folk.

Hearing people who I respect as musicians rave about him, I must admit I expected more than I recieved from this album.
Without question Bert Jansch was an awesome guitar player, but I didn't really take to his lyrics or his voice if I'm being honest.

This may well be down to my ignorance of said genre, and not being a guitar player, not being able to appreciate how good his guitar playing was (maybe if we have any musicians looking in, you can enlighten me)

Anyway, although you're a fellow Scot, I'm afraid there won't be any room for you in my collection.

Found it hard to get much triv on Bert but here's a couple of bits.

Bert Jansch, who died on October 5 aged 67, was one of Britain’s greatest folk guitarists, but had an influence that spread far beyond the genre, reaching rock musicians as diverse as Jimmy Page, Johnny Marr and Neil Young. A maverick character who in his early days frequently had to borrow a guitar to play gigs, he went on to form the successful crossover group Pentangle.

Yet he never enjoyed the commercial solo success of many of the acts he directly influenced.Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Donovan, Nick Drake and Sandy Denny were all in thrall to the enigmatic, tousle-haired young Scotsman after he arrived in London in the early 1960s. As Jansch established himself in the folk music boom then taking place, the freshness of his playing won other admirers, including The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Elton John.Unlike them, however, Jansch was almost pathologically determined not to become a star. The battle between his urge to play and his urge to duck the limelight lasted his entire career. Last year, when the former was in the ascendant, he supported Neil Young on an America-wide tour.

Previously, however, he had put down his guitar to become a farmer in rural Wales.He was born Herbert Jansch in Glasgow on November 3 1943 to a family of German immigrants. His mother struggled to make ends meet after his father – who had a string of hard, manual jobs – walked out when Bert was five. They moved to West Pilton, one of the poorest areas of Edinburgh, and Bert’s earliest musical influences were the jazz and big band 78rpm records brought into the house by his elder sister Mary.But it was the onset of rock and roll – specifically Elvis Presley and Little Richard – that led him to dream of becoming a musician. He subsequently became enamoured with the blues of Big Bill Broonzy and determined to learn the guitar, attempting to build his own instrument out of hardboard because he could not afford to buy one.

By the time he was 12 he had made an instrument that worked after a fashion and, having already grasped the rudiments of the piano, set about teaching himself to master his self-built contraption. “The strings were so far off the fretboard it was almost impossible to play — the D was the only chord I could hold down,” he recalled.A bright pupil, he was encouraged to go on to further education; but he hated the discipline and got a job at 16, working in a plant nursery. He used his first pay packet as a down payment on a Hofner cello guitar and soon made for Howff, a coffee bar which doubled as a folk club, where he heard that free guitar lessons were on offer.

Progress was rapid. He quit his job, left home and adopted the life of an itinerant musician, sometimes sleeping on beaches, friends’ floors or at the Howff, where he became caretaker. Initially he almost exclusively played blues covers, but gradually he began to write his own music and develop a distinct guitar style, fingerpicking with varied tunings, which developed further when he started making regular visits to London and met other musicians.Among these was Davy Graham, whose own groundbreaking guitar technique, flecked by distant and often obscure influences, notably from North Africa, had a particularly profound effect on Jansch. Indeed, Jansch’s mastery of Graham’s instrumental composition Anji effectively became his calling card as he started to take London’s nascent folk scene by storm.He was exploring with tuning and timing himself, as well as improvising wildly, and when in 1965 Transatlantic Records released his debut album, Bert Jansch, his reputation blossomed. The record included Anji and the controversial Needle Of Death, written about the fatal drug habit of another young musician, Buck Polley, at a time when such subjects were largely considered taboo. It also erroneously fuelled the rumour that Jansch was himself a junkie.

With his second album, It Don’t Bother Me, released later the same year, he teamed up with his flatmate John Renbourn, also a guitar virtuoso, to form a duo which was soon hailed as the hottest on the folk scene.Their partnership resulted in the landmark 1966 album Jack Orion, which was Jansch’s first genuine foray into the realm of traditional song, and included a remarkable jazz-inflected arrangement of Blackwaterside, one of several such songs learned from his friend and occasional lover, Anne Briggs. Jansch’s arrangement of Blackwaterside would remain in his set for the rest of his career, and secured wide fame when it was adopted and recorded by Led Zeppelin.In 1966 his partnership with Renbourn produced another album, Bert and John. The pair were now clearly looking beyond the confines of the folk movement, and the following year they started playing informally with jazz musicians who congregated at the Horseshoe Hotel in London’s Tottenham Court Road. The result was the formation of Pentangle, featuring Jansch, Renbourn, the bass player Danny Thompson, drummer Terry Cox and singer Jacqui McShee.Their fusion of traditional folk songs with jazz, blues and pop proved an instant hit, selling out major concert halls and leading to a series of successful albums, notably Basket Of Light (1969), as well as the hit single Light Flight (1970) – the theme music for the television drama series Take Three Girls.But Jansch, an often shambling, dishevelled figure, hated the limelight. Wilfully unassuming and self-effacing, he was not cut out for celebrity and always preferred modest backstreet pubs to television studios and glamorous parties.

In 1973, driven by wrangles with other band members, legal disputes and drink binges, he split from Pentangle – although he was to return for various reunions, most recently this summer for gigs at the Cambridge Folk Festival and London’s Royal Festival Hall.Despite the high regard in which he was held by fellow musicians and the music industry at large, various post-Pentangle attempts to launch Jansch as a major solo artist failed, despite sustained support from the label Reprise, which backed him with top American session musicians for LA Turnaround (1974) and Santa Barbara Honeymoon (1975).Jansch, it became clear, simply didn’t want to be a star, and his career declined as his drinking escalated. At one point he even gave up music entirely to retreat to the sanctuary of farming in Wales. But admiring mentions of his name by a new generation of musicians lured him back to playing, and he recorded a trilogy of well-received albums for the Cooking Vinyl label — When The Circus Comes To Town (1995), Toy Balloon (1998) and Crimson Moon (2000), which proved that the subtleties of his guitar playing and his quietly engaging songwriting were intact and as compelling as ever.He subsequently gigged with Bernard Butler and Johnny Marr, and played with Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart on his 2006 album, The Black Swan. Other collaborations included a slot with Pete Doherty on the Babyshambles album Shotter’s Nation (2007) and, although already suffering the effects of lung cancer, he toured America in 2010, opening to great acclaim for Neil Young.

Despite his aversion to attention, he did attend the BBC Folk Awards to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, returning in 2007 to get a similar accolade with Pentangle. He was forever modest, almost to the point of embarrassment, when anybody told him how much they admired him, and though this reticence cost him much in terms of financial reward, it was also a large part of why he was so widely loved.“I don’t care what the world thinks of me,” he said in a recent interview. “I’m not one for showing off, but I guess my guitar playing sticks out.”Bert Jansch was married three times, and is survived by his wife Loren Auerbach and two sons.

Johnny Marr said;
 When people unfamiliar with Bert ask me for a quick education, I say, without Bert Jansch The Beatles wouldn’t have written ‘Dear Prudence’. Why? Because Donovan, who famously wrote ‘House Of Jansch’ and ‘Bert’s Blues’, found himself accompanying The Beatles to Rishikesh to see the Maharishi. And showed John Lennon, in particular, the descending clawhammer D technique. It’s known to most guitarists from Neil Young’s ‘Needle And The Damage Done’, which is a lift from Bert’s ‘Needles Of Death’ anyway. That technique is something guitarists now take for granted – tune to low D, play descending lines from the first position from D to C to Bb. We don ‘t think about it, but it’s got to have come from somewhere. And in Britain, it came from Bert. Hence ‘Dear Prudence’. Bert may have appropriated it from Davey Graham, but Bert was the star. Bert was the one everyone wanted to be.A lot of people who don’t know Bert’s music think he’s all about technique. And while he can be dazzling in that regard, he has a healthy disregard for the academic side of playing. He’s a million miles away from those boring GIT dudes. He know it’s ultimately about a getting a feeling across."



 

PatReilly wrote:

Never been into acoustic guitar, but the guy was technically brilliant. For years I thought Led Zep had stolen a song directly for Led Zep I from Bert Jansch, but I looked it up again, and although there was an attempt to sue Jimmy Page, it was abandoned due to costs. But the song was a traditional one anyway, it seems...... never knew.

It seems Mr Page has a bit of previous for this, If you type in, the thieving magpies by will shade, you might find it quite interesting.

Day 57.
The Byrds............Mr Tambourine Man     (1965)




Listening to this album, I was struck by it being much of a muchness.

I don't know if Mr McGuinn got his 12 string for xmas and it was only leased for a limited period,
and needed to use it as much as he could, but too much for me .

I do like close harmonies, but not on every track it got really boring, then to top it all the final track was a rendition of "We'll Meet Again,"  and to say I prefer the Vera Lynn version, I'd imagine tells you where I stand on this album.

Shades of "Needles And Pins" on one of the tracks, I don't know which came first, but all in all not overly impressed,

Two tracks I did like "Mr Tambourine Man and "All I really Want To Do," the latter I really liked, but unfortunately not enough to add to my collection.

• Among the pioneers of folk rock, their popularity in the mid-'60s rivaled that of the Beatles. The Byrds' characteristic sound was McGuinn's 12-string Rickenbacker guitar.


• Names before the Byrds include: the Jet Set, the Beefeaters. They misspelled "Byrds" as their nod to the Beatles.


• They were signed to Columbia after being recommended by jazz trumpetist Miles Davis.


• Clark left not only because he argued with McGuinn, but also because he had a fear of flying that made touring difficult. McGuinn told Clark, "You can't be a byrd if you can't fly."


• Crosby went on to fame in Crosby, Stills and Nash. Parsons and Hillman formed the Flying Burrito Brothers.


• White was a former bluegrass guitarist.


• The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. It was the same night the US began airstrikes on Baghdad.


• Roger (Jim, as he was known then) McGuinn, had been in the New Christy Minstrels before joining the Byrds.


• David Crosby recalled to Uncut magazine how The Byrds started: "I started going up and hanging out with Roger and Gene, we would sing together at The Troubadour," he said. "Gene was from a family of 11 from somewhere like Mississippi, he had no clue what the rules were, so he would just do it in a way that somebody else hadn't thought of. And Roger was so smart, who listened to and go, 'Well, we could just do this and this to it,' and boom, it's a record! I almost hate giving Roger as much credit as I do, but you can't deny it – he was a moving force behind that band, and he did create the arrangements for the songs."


• During the late 1940s, Roger McGuinn's parents, Jim and Dorothy, wrote a best-selling book which was a satire of Baby And Child Care, Dr. Spock's famed child-rearing manual. McGuinn recalled to Mojo: "It was called Parents Can't Win and it was based on their experiences trying to raise me using child psychology and how it backfired all the time. It was considered very topical and sold well."


What do you get when you cross the eclectic, electric sounds of The Beatles with the hip-folk Americana of Bob Dylan?Why, those high-flyin’, no ” i ” in Byrds, of course!In 1964, three long-time folk singers living in Los Angeles bonded over a shared admiration of the exciting new music emanating from England. After seeing A Hard Day’s Night that summer, they eschewed the acoustics, bought the exact model instruments The Beatles played in the movie, added a bassist and a drummer, let their hair grow long, and changed their name from The Jet Set (too Rat Pack) to The Byrds (groovy, man).
 The band’s manager acquired an advance copy of Bob Dylan’s unreleased “Mr. Tambourine Man” and The Byrds cut out half a dozen verses, added a chiming 12-string guitar riff, rocked it up a little, and sent that song to #1 in the spring of 1965. Later that year, they released a cover of Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn” and scored their second #1, thereby establishing folk-rock as the biggest sound around.

It strikes me that you have to be quite a serious biscuit to enjoy certain types of music. Jazz, Folk (the acoustic singy stuff), and the likes of The Byrds and Dylan.

I know most big music fans have an admiration for Dylan, but I've never got it. Generally, I don't like Yankee music too much otherwise, while recognising the influence it has had over other musical styles.

DAY 59.
The Who............My Generation    (1965)




The Who's first album, which nowadays evokes the spirit of a kind of Carnaby-street -London-that -never-was, is only superficially the sound of mod.

In reality, My Generation is the desperate sound of a young band confused about their identity, helplessly exploited by senior industry figures, and only sure of one thing; their fearsome energy and their ability to channel it into audience leveling songs.

The Who may have evolved into a much more sophisticated beast on later albums, but the rawness of My Generation makes it a landmark.

Looking forward to hearing this.

 

DAY 59.
The Who............My Generation    (1965)




Have to say I agree with the earlier statement" My Generation is the desperate sound of a young band confused about their identity,"

They are obviously well into R&B, as shown by their choice of covers, but maybe in years to come they found that this, wasn't going to be their particular route to success.

As an album like Pat said, it was ok, the stand out for me was obviously "My Generation" and "The Kids Are All Right" don't know why they covered "Please, Please," a James Brown, Daltry is certainly not, but couldn't imagine James Brown doing a very good cover of "My Generation" but this is just my humble opinion.

Anyways a pleasant enough listen, but that's the problem, I don't normally associate the word pleasant with The Who, more angry,energetic, gutsy and brash, would cover them.

Is this album worth the entrance fee to my collection ?

No, but I'm sure I'll be meeting The Who again in this book, and I'm certain that the entrance fee will be paid in full.

Some early Who stuff'

Along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Who complete the holy trinity of British rock. The group began as fashionable London mods, playing a self-styled brand of "Maximum R&B," but became much more: the pioneers of rock opera, a powerhouse arena act, and among the first rock groups to successfully integrate (rather than merely fiddle with) synthesizers. Their smashed guitars and overturned (or blown up) drum kits symbolized the violent passions of a band that mixed four distinct and powerful sounds: Pete Townshend's alternately raging or majestic guitar playing, Keith Moon's nearly anarchic drumming style, John Entwistle's facile, thundering bass lines, and Roger Daltrey's impassioned vocals

.Ever since guitarist and main songwriter Townshend declared in "My Generation," "Hope I die before I get old," he has been embraced as a high-minded spokesman for rock & roll, a role he assumed (he claims) reluctantly. Nonetheless, for the much of his career with the Who Townshend explored rock's philosophical topography, from the raw rebelliousness of "My Generation" and adolescent angst of "I Can't Explain" to such ambitious songs as "Love Reign O'er Me." That the Who continued to perform (and repackage their catalogue) well into the new millennium irked critics and old fans, but respect for the band's classic work has never waned.

The Queen Mother, God bless her, can’t claim responsibility for many rock songs.But she can take considerable credit for The Who’s My Generation, the loudest, snottiest rock ’n’ roll anthem of them all.


 My Generation came kicking and screaming into the world in late 1964, when Pete Townshend, The Who’s guitarist and principal songwriter, purchased an ancient Packard V12 hearse for £90 and parked it proudly outside his flat in Belgravia.‘I wasn’t made to feel particularly welcome in that area,’ he recalls. ‘I thought they were snobs. I was an angry, cocky young man but I felt pushed around. 'The funny thing back then was that you didn’t have to pay for parking, so I plonked it outside my place thinking it looked rather cool.’


 Within days, the vehicle had vanished. A mysterious telephone call informed Townshend that the car had been impounded upon the request of the Queen Mother, as she had to pass it every day and it brought to mind her late husband King George VI’s funeral 12 years earlier. Recovery would cost an extortionate £250, but the caller offered to pay this fee in exchange for ownership of the majestic motor.

Whether or not the enigmatic Royal representative ever really existed we’ll never know. But Townshend resentfully agreed to the dubious deal then, suitably incensed, finished writing My Generation (‘which I’d had brewing’) and dedicated it to the Queen Mum.‘I saw her as a boring old lady who had nothing better to do than go around taking away teenagers’ cars,’ he says now. ‘But I got a rather decent song out of it, so, cheers, Ma’am.’ 

 All four band members grew up around London – Townshend, Daltrey, and Entwistle in the working-class Shepherd's Bush area. Townshend's parents were professional entertainers. He and Entwistle knew each other at school in the late-1950s and played in a Dixieland band when they were in their early teens, with Townshend on banjo and Entwistle on trumpet. They played together in a rock band, but Entwistle left in 1962 to join the Detours. That band included Roger Daltrey, a sheet-metal worker.

When the Detours needed to replace a rhythm guitarist, Entwistle suggested Townshend, and Daltrey switched from lead guitar to vocals when the original singer, Colin Dawson, left in1963. Not long after that, drummer Doug Sandom was replaced by Moon, who was then playing in a surf band called the Beachcombers. By early 1964 the group had changed its name to the Who, and not long after, the excitement inspired by Townshend's bashing his guitar out of frustrating during a show ensured it would become a part of the act.

• Before they were The Who they were The Detours, then The High Numbers.


• They started out as a cover band, performing American R&B songs.


• Daltrey was kicked out of the band in 1965 after a fight with Moon (Daltrey flushed his drugs down the toilet because he felt it was affecting his performance). Daltrey apologized and three days later, they took him back.

Al Kooper in Backstage Passes And Backstabbing Bastards ( for the title alone I think It will be worth a read) talks about seeing The Who perform live for the first time. Kooper was watching "to see what all the fuss was about" from the wings when The Who did "My Generation" as the closing act during a 1967 event. First Pete Townsend smashed the guitar into an amp, then a mike stand, then the stage floor, before it was finally destroyed. Then Keith Moon kicked over his entire drum stand and the curtain came down on a cloud of artificial smoke. How did The Who pay for all this? Kooper reports that between shows, The Who's roadie, Bob Pridden, would be in the dressing room, gluing guitar bits and drum kits back together while constructing smoke bombs and signing microphone repair bills.

In the early days of The Who, Roger Daltrey worked in a sheet metal factory and made the band's guitars himself.

Last edited by arabchanter (07/10/2017 10:17 pm)

Just found these, might be worth a look?









 

DAY 61.
The Beach Boys............Pet Sounds    (1966)




If Rubber Soul marked a pivotal moment for The Beatles, signaling the psychadelic journey they were about to embark on, it also served as a spur to Brian Wilson, the errant genius at the heart of The Beach Boys.

Inspired by "every cut (on Rubber Soul being) very artistically interesting and stimulating," Wilson headed for the studioto create Pet Sounds, an album that matched, if not topped, the fab four's effort.

Let's see if it's as good as it's made out to be?



 

Last edited by arabchanter (09/10/2017 10:26 pm)

DAY 61.
The Beach Boys............Pet Sounds    (1966)




This album is a bit of an enigma for me, on the one hand it always seems to be in the top 5 albums of all time, raved about from many musically knowledgable people I respect, in and out of the business.

But on the other hand I just didn't take to it, It probably is well produced and may well be ahead of it's time, but I found it's lyrics a bit dismal and depressing.

As said before about The Beach Boys I like them, but in small doses can't really do a whole album of high pich vocals, but just my personal opinion.

Having read quite a few reviews of this album I've been struck by the ammount of times I read, " didn't like it the first time I played it, but after playing it a few more times it clicked, and now my favourite album"
Maybe if I get time I'll listen to it a few more times, see if the penny drops, but as of now I won't be putting Pet Sounds into my collection, but who knows in the future?

In an effort to craft material that moved beyond the Beach Boys' lightweight fun-fun-fun-in-the-sun fare, Brian Wilson sought to work with a lyricist from outside the band's usual circle. In late 1965, he tapped Tony Asher, a copywriter at the prestigious Carson-Scott advertising agency, who had written campaigns for Mattel toys ("You can tell it's Mattel – It's swell!"), as well as Max Factor, Gallo Wines and a host of other high-profile clients. The pair was loosely acquainted through mutual friends, and had recently crossed paths in the recording studio where Asher was producing advertising jingles. The meeting was short and uneventful, but the urbane and articulate ad man stayed on Wilson's mind."A few weeks later, I got a phone call, " recalled Asher in an interview for the Pet Sounds 30th-anniversary box set. "And Brian said, 'Listen, I have an album that is overdue. Would you want to help me write it?' I thought it was somebody in the office playing a joke on me.'" After confirming it wasn't a prank, Asher secured a leave of absence from his job and reported for duty at the pop star's Beverly Hills home several days later. Though it may sound like an unusual pairing, Asher's experience turning long meetings with ad clients into crisp copy and memorable slogans made him an ideal partner for Wilson. Most of their writing sessions began with abstract conversations about life and love, which would inevitably seep into their work. As Asher relayed to Nick Kent: "It's fair to say that the general tenor of the lyrics was always his and the actual choice of words was usually mine. I was really just his interpreter."


For Asher's first assignment, Wilson handed over a cassette of an instrumental track for a song called "In My Childhood." The composition already had a complete melody and set of lyrics, which Wilson underscored in the arrangement with youthful sounds from a bike horn and bell. But he had grown unhappy with these words and tasked Asher with writing new ones. "That was a good way to start things off," Asher said. "It's a great luxury – at least for a lyricist – to write to tracks because you have a much better sense of what the musical mood of the song is. And here was a case where it was real clear what Brian had in mind."The next day, Asher returned with the lyrics to "You Still Be Believe in Me" scrawled on a yellow legal pad. The new lyrics were recorded over the "In My Childhood" instrumental track, which retained its innocent horn and bell as the only vestiges of its prior incarnation. "Brian never let me hear the [original] lyric to it," Asher remembered. To date, no trace of the "In My Childhood" verses have ever surfaced


Brian Wilson always had a special fondness for "Let's Go Away For a While," labeling it "the most satisfying piece of music I have ever made." The complex dynamics and elusive theme make it one of the most fully realized arrangements of his career, but he claims it's missing a major component: lyrics."The track was supposed to be the backing for a vocal, but I decided to leave it alone," Wilson said in 1967. "It stands up well alone." This revelation would explain why no obvious tune springs from the melodic figures ("Try to hum it!" he challenged years later). Some reports published in the Nineties accuse Capitol Records, anxious for their overdue album, of forcing Brian to use the vocal session to mix Pet Sounds – or even of confiscating the incomplete tapes outright. It remains to be seen whether these tales are based in reality or rock revisionism. Tony Asher, for his part, denies ever penning words for the tune. "I never heard any lyrics to that song, although I understood there were some. I don't know if they were recorded or who wrote them, if in fact they ever existed.


 "God Only Knows" was written in under an hour.
The track has become one of the most beloved in the band's canon, famously praised by Paul McCartney as the greatest song ever written. Its legendary status is even more remarkable considering that it came together in less than an hour. According to a 2015 Guardian interview, Wilson claims that he and Tony Asher composed the song in just 45 minutes. "We didn't spend a lot of time writing it," confirms Asher. "It came pretty quickly. And Brian spent a lot of time working on what ended up being the instrumental parts of that song. But the part that has lyrics really was one of those things that just kinda came out as a whole."Author Jim Fusilli theorized that the song's title was born out of a love letter Wilson wrote to his wife Marilyn in 1964, signing off with "Yours until God wants us apart." Whatever the true genesis, this reference to God created a dilemma for the two collaborators. "We had lengthy conversations during the writing of 'God Only Knows,'" remembers Asher. "Because unless you were Kate Smith and you were singing 'God Bless America,' no one thought you could say 'God' in a song. No one had done it, and Brian didn't want to be the first person to try it. He said, 'We'll just never get any airplay.'" Though a handful of Southern radio stations banned the song for blasphemy, it was warmly received nearly everywhere else.


For the album's emotional closer, 23-year-old Brian Wilson cast his mind back to his teenage crush on a cheerleader named Carol Mountain. He had been obsessed with the girl as a student, rhapsodizing about her beautiful complexion and long dark hair. By 1966, Wilson had discovered that Mountain was married and still living in their hometown of Hawthorne, not far from his Hollywood home. Though also married, Wilson began to call his unrequited high-school love, who had no inkling of his true feelings until decades later. "He didn't sound drugged or anything, but it was very strange," Mountain told author Peter Ames Carlin. "He'd call at 3 a.m. and want to talk about music. ... But it was nothing inappropriate. It was just a strange thing he was going through, calling and connecting."Though they didn't meet in person, Wilson grew depressed that the torch he carried for Mountain had begun to dim. "If I saw her today, I'd probably think, 'God, she's lost something,' because growing up does that to people," he explained decades later. He relayed this story to Tony Asher, who penned a chorus in the form of a dialogue between the two: "Oh, Carol, I know." Wilson misheard this as "Caroline, No," giving the song its pleading title. The recording became one of the most heartbreaking tunes ever committed to wax, plodding ahead at a depressive crawl. He played the song to his father (and onetime band manager), Murry Wilson, who advised his son to speed up the tape a full tone to give his voice a sweeter, more youthful quality. The effect made him sound like the lovesick teenager that, in many ways, he still was."Caroline, No" was released under Brian Wilson's own name in March 1966, the first solo single for any Beach Boy.


Session musicians used Coke cans, water bottles and orange juice jugs for percussion.
The arrangements on Pet Sounds boast a dazzling array of percussion previously unseen in the rock-music arena. Sleigh bells, timpani, güiro, vibraphone, bongos and other exotic instruments all add color to the album, but certain sounds aren't instruments at all. In order to create the music in his head, Wilson improvised a number of percussive instruments from whatever he had on hand. For the Latin-tinged "Pet Sounds" track, he encouraged drummer Ritchie Frost to tap two empty Coke cans for a distinctive percussive beat.Drumming legend Hal Blaine, unofficial chief of the crack team of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, had something special up his sleeve for the clip-clop rhythm that kept "God Only Knows" galloping forward. "We used to drink orange juice out of the vending machines," he explained. "I took three of these small six- or eight-ounce plastic orange-drink bottles, and I cut them down to three different sizes in length. And I taped 'em together, and I used a little vibraphone mallet. Brian loved that kind of stuff." Session man Jim Gordon (later of Derek and the Dominos) actually played the OJ bottles, but Hal pulled off a similar trick on the introduction for "Caroline, No," playing upturned Sparkletts water jugs like bongos.


The Beach Boys and photographer George Jerman traveled to the San Diego Zoo on February 15th, 1966, to shoot the cover art for their new album. The final image showed five of the bandmates (the newly enlisted Bruce Johnston couldn't appear on the cover for contractual reasons) feeding goats in the children's petting paddock. The scene looks wholesome enough, but apparently the band didn't endear themselves to the zoo staff.According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Zoo officials accused the Beach Boys (reportedly Dennis Wilson in particular) of "mistreating the animals." The group, for their part, claimed that they were the ones who were mistreated. "You know the big white [goat] on the front? The most obnoxious animal I've ever known in my life," Al Jardine complained during a 1966 interview on Hartford's WDRC. "Pushed me, and all of us, all over the place. If you had a little piece of something in your hand, he'd know it. And he'd almost trample you trying to get that thing!" Even decades later, Bruce Johnston never forgot the ill-tempered creatures. "The goats were horrible! They jump all over you and bite. One of them ate my radio. The zoo said we were torturing the animals, but they should have seen what we had to go through. We were doing all the suffering."


If Capitol wasn't going to properly promote Pet Sounds, then Bruce Johnston vowed to do it himself. On May 16th, he began a self-guided London excursion "to do some hustling" for the album, which had been released that very day in the States but had yet to be issued in the U.K. Upon landing, Johnston was immediately befriended by Keith Moon, drummer for the Who and one of England's biggest surf fanatics. Moon played genial host to the American abroad, chauffeuring him to the best clubs, restaurants and parties in his Bentley – specially outfitted with a record player and a stack of the Beach Boys' old records.The pair attended a taping of the rock television program Ready Steady Go! and dropped by the after-party with Moon's bandmate, John Entwistle. The revelry went on a little too long, and the trio missed the start of Who's gig that evening. When they finally arrived at the venue, they were stunned to discover that the other half of the band – Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey – had begun playing without them. Enraged, Moon instigated a drunken onstage brawl with his bandmates. "They got in the biggest fight I've ever seen," Johnston confirmed in later years. "Guitars are swinging, everybody's in a frenzy. ... guys were bleeding." When the dust cleared, Moon and Entwistle quit the Who in a huff. Thankfully, the split would prove short-lived.Bruce Johnston's trip had a much more positive effect on the Beatles. John Lennon and Paul McCartney dropped by Johnston's Waldorf Hotel suite to say hello and scope out this new Beach Boys album that was setting the English music papers abuzz. "John and Paul made me play it twice. They loved it," Johnston said. "We all knew that it was a really wonderful thing to be listening to. There wasn't much to say; it was like collectively watching a great movie, and you go, 'Wow!' and just know it was cool." According to legend, the two Fabs said their farewells and headed to McCartney's nearby apartment to pen a Pet Sounds-style preamble for their lush "Here, There and Everywhere." The track found its way onto Revolver that August, but it was their 1967 follow-up that truly bore influence of Brian Wilson. "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened," admitted Beatles' producer George Martin. "Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds."