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









When I saw this album and seen the title of the band, I thought to myself this is going to be a chore/bore.



Having never heard of The Electric Prunes, I clicked the play button with a good deal of trepidation, the opening bars of " I Had Too Much To Dream (last Night)" and this is probably just me, sounded like the opening of "Friday On My Mind" which kinda put me at ease a little.



This was probably the stand out track on the album, but "Try Me On For Size" for me, gives it a run for it's money as I loved the singers gravelly voice on that one.


Also liked "Get Me To The World On Time" it was little wonder the opening track on both sides were singles.



The rest of the album wasn't too shabby either to be honest, apart from "The King Is In The Counting House" a baroque number that didn't really appeal, and the less said about the last track  "Tunerville Trolley" a cartoony/ragtime effort, that kinda took a bit of gloss of the album for me.



So putting this one to bed, I'm really glad I listened to it, and I have to say I did enjoy it and I wouldn't be embarrassed about having this album in my collection, The Electric Prunes has been quite the unexpected find, but unfortunately due to financial constraints wont be added at this juncture.


Bits & Bobs;


The Electric Prunes are an American rock band who first achieved international attention as an experimental psychedelic group in the late 1960s. The band performed its 1966 hit song "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" on American Bandstand.


The band is also recognized for the song "Kyrie Eleison", which was featured on the soundtrack of Easy Rider. After a period in which they had little control over their music, they disbanded for 30 years. In 1999 the band reformed. By 2001 the members had resumed recording and touring and remained active until 2011.



The group started in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, though during the group's long disbandment, rumors circulated that they were from Seattle. Their first hit was discovered by Seattle disk jockey Pat O'Day at KJR (AM) and was very popular in that city before it broke into the national charts. The founding members, Ken Williams (guitar), James Lowe (lead vocal, autoharp), Michael Weakley and eventually Joe Dooley (drums) and Mark Tulin (bass), called themselves The Sanctions, and later, Jim and the Lords. Soon, Dick Hargrave joined on organ, but left shortly afterwards to pursue graphic arts. Their lineup changed many times, including one lineup with Kenny Loggins.



Lowe, Tulin, Williams and Weakley were introduced to David Hassinger, then resident engineer at RCA studios, who arranged for them to record some demos at Leon Russell's home recording facility (which he called Sky Hill Studios). Hassinger also suggested they needed a new name. In response, the band produced a long list of suggestions, with "The Electric Prunes" last as a joke.



A single called "Ain't It Hard/Little Olive" was released from these sessions, and flopped.



Early success
The Prunes' next single, "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" (1966), was chosen from material Hassinger culled from the established songwriting team of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. It remains their highest charting success, reaching 11 in the USA and 49 in the UK. Personnel included Jim Lowe on vocals, James "Weasel" Spagnola and Ken Williams on guitar, Mark Tulin on bass and Preston Ritter on drums. This is regarded by many as the classic Prunes lineup.



Their third single, "Get Me to the World on Time", was also successful but less so, peaking at 27 in the USA and 42 in the UK Singles Chart. Both their first album, The Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) (1967) and consisting mainly of Tucker/Mantz material, and the followup Underground (1967) which featured mainly original Prunes material, charted in the lower reaches of the Billboard charts.



By the time Underground was complete, there had been several more personnel changes. Original drummer Weakley returned to replace Ritter, and Spagnola was replaced on guitar by Mike Gannon, who appears on only two songs. Their fourth single, "Everybody Knows You're Not In Love", was recorded by this lineup, but did not appear on this album.



The Axelrod period

At the suggestion of manager Lenny Poncher, the Prunes's third album, Mass in F Minor (1968), was a psychedelicized setting of the Mass, written and produced by David Axelrod. Initial work on the arrangements was done by Mark Tulin, but it became clear during the recording that Axelrod's intentions outstripped the band's technical abilities, Jim Lowe commenting that "David Axelrod was so far above what we, as a garage band, were able to deliver." The band reportedly broke up during the recording, and Axelrod completed the album using Canadian band The Collectors and session musicians. A tour had been planned to follow the album release, but it was cancelled after one disastrous show at which it was obvious that the Prunes could not play the music, some of which they had seen for the first time only a few days before the concert. Nevertheless, the album became somewhat of an underground favorite. "Kyrie Eleison" from this record was used to back the dinner scene wherein Billy was trying to convince a grief-stricken Captain America to go to Mardi Gras in the movie Easy Rider.



This was followed by Release of An Oath (1968), another religious-themed work composed and arranged by Axelrod, this time combining Jewish and Christian liturgy. It was produced by David Hassinger using top session musicians for all instruments, backing the Prunes's vocal work. By this time, the original band had split up and Hassinger formed a new group, comprising Richard Whetstone, John Herron and Mark Kincaid, who had all been in a Colorado band called Climax, and Brett Wade from another of Hassinger's groups, The Collectors. This group was augmented by leading session musicians including Howard Roberts, Carol Kaye and Earl Palmer for the recording.



"The New Improved" Electric Prunes


The following album Just Good Old Rock and Roll (1969) was recorded by the same group of musicians, who had been assigned the Prunes's name, although according to James Lowe the name was not legally owned by Hassinger. The album cover read 'the new improved Electric Prunes' to reflect the new lineup, although the group name remained the same. This band toured and also released a single on Reprise Records in 1969, but dissolved early in 1970.



Reissues and reformation


Through the inclusion of their classic "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" on the seminal Nuggets compilation of 1960s psychedelic gems the Electric Prunes continued to reach new fans in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. That track in particular has been a regular of psychedelic bands through the decades including Australia's Prince Vlad & the Gargoyle Impalers in the early to mid-1980s. The track was recorded by psychedelic punks The Damned in the 1980s, under their alter ego of Naz Nomad and the Nightmares, and was also a feature of The Damned's live set in the mid-1980s. XTC, recording under the name Dukes of Stratosphear also paid homage to the song on their song "25 O'Clock" which emulates the style of the song. It was also recorded by Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks for their album Doo Dad, and featured in the "trip" sequence in Webb's movie Horror Hayride. A Patrick Cowley-produced Hi-NRG version, simply entitled "Too Much to Dream", was released in 1983 by Paul Parker as part of an album of the same name.




Got to say, their earlier stuff was a lot better.

 

Last edited by arabchanter (03/6/2018 7:46 pm)

DAY 102.
Loretta Lynn.........................Dont Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)   (1967)








A sentiment I've heard many a time over the years, but not exactly word for word, or delivered quite so nicely.


Thanks in no small part to the biopic Coal Miners Daughter, the arc of Loretta Lynn's singing career is well known. It resembles that of many country stars, she emerged from a desperately poor childhood to become wealthy and internationally famous.


However, unlike many country singers, men and women alike, Lynn wrote all her own material, and beginning in the mid 60s, she composed outspoken songs about the frustrations of womanhood that, in their frequently humorous way, anticipated feminism.
 

Last edited by arabchanter (19/11/2017 12:27 pm)

Think you're being over generous about Loretta Lynn.

shedboy wrote:

I nearly stopped listening after 3 second of Loretta lynn - lol.  Hate that type of guitar intro and yup struggle with country n western.  Some voice on the gal and that album sleeve looks like a fairy liquid advert.

Thats my review  (i listened to 4 songs and skipped the rest - not bad really)

My old Mum had a liking for blasting out a bit of Patsy Cline, on the old record player when I was a kid, maybe being subjected to it from an early age helped me cope a  little bit better.  
 

DAY 104.
The Velvet Underground......................White Light/White Heat    (1967)






By the end of 1967, The Velvet Underground's celebrity benefactor Andy Warhol was losing interest, prompting singer/lyricist Lou Reed to call on Boston businessman Steve Sesnick,

The new manager urged Reed to pursue a more commercial agenda, to the displeasure of bassist/organist John Cale.

White Light/White Heat shifted even fewer copies than their debut, however, in terms of over-amped attitude and raw exhilaration there is nothing quite like it.

DAY 104.
The Velvet Underground......................White Light/White Heat    (1967)






I can only recall ever listening to "White Light/White Heat" once before, which is odd for a person who rates their previous album with Nico as one of my favourites, but to be honest I didn't really take to it.


Today I have just finished listening to it for the third time (granted, I've skipped "The Gift" twice, I really do think once is probably enough for any man, the story is alrightish, but Cale's Welsh accent mighta sounded cute to the Yanks but grated on me) and with every play I took a bit more out of the album.



Opening up with the pulsating "White Light /White Heat all the way through to "Sister Ray" obviously giving "The Gift" the body swerve, I enjoyed all the tracks, a personal thing "Sister Ray" is a great track, but as you may know I'm not into musical free for alls, which I thought this turned in to, so a wee bit of trimming wouldn't have went amiss for this listener.

I shouldn't compare this, and should judge every album as a stand alone, but got to say I much preferred their previous album, but fear not Mr Reed where ever you you have taken up residence, this album will be making it's way to the subbys bench, and it's future to be decided at a later date.

Just one last thing, I don't think Lou Reed got enough plaudits for his songwriting, although most are not along conventional lines, I think that's what I like about them, they are mostly gritty, seedy  and dark, but give me that over sickly sycophantic luvee duvee crap any day.


Bits & Bobs


"The quintessence of articulated punk" was how Lou Reed described his band's second album.


Andy Warhol was no longer managing and feeding the group. Warhol’s parting gift: the all-black cover idea for their follow-up – the album they would name White Light/White Heat. Meanwhile, the band scrabbled to survive in the drug-soaked art-scene demi-monde of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.“Our lives were chaos,” VU guitarist Sterling Morrison said 1994. “Things were insane, day in and day out: the people we knew, the excesses of all sorts. For a long time, we were living in various places, afraid of the police. At the height of my musical career, I had no permanent address.

 There were mounting internal tensions, too, over direction and control between Lou Reed and John Cale, the group’s founders, especially after their debut album’s failure to launch. “White Light/White Heat was definitely the raucous end of what we did,” Morrison affirmed. But, he insisted, “We were all pulling in the same direction. We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were definitely all going in the same direction.”

 From that turbulence and frustration, Reed, Cale, Morrison and drummer Moe Tucker created their second straight classic. Where The Velvet Underground And Nico was a demonstration of breadth and vision, developed in near-invisibility even before the band met Warhol – “We rehearsed for a year for that album, without doing anything else,” Cale claims – White Light/White Heat was a more compact whiplash: the exhilarating guitar violence starting with the title track, peaking in Reed’s atonal-flamethrower solo in I Heard Her Call My Name; the experimental sung and spoken noir of Lady Godiva’s Operation and The Gift; the propulsive, distorted eternity of sexual candour and twilight drug life, rendered dry and real in Reed’s lethal monotone, in Sister Ray.

 “By this time, we were a touring band,” Cale explains. “And the sound we could get on stage – we wanted to get that on the record. In some performances, Moe would go up first, start a backbeat, then I would come out and put a drone on the keyboard. Sterling would start playing, then Lou would come out, maybe turn into a Southern preacher at the mike. That idea of us coming out one after the other, doing whatever we wanted, that individualism – it’s there on Sister Ray, in spades.”


“I’m in there with a B.A. in English – I’m no naif,” Reed told me shortly before his death. “And being in with that crowd, the improvisers, the film-makers, of course it would affect where I was going. We said it a hundred times; people thought we were being arrogant and conceited. We’re reading those authors, watching those Jack Smith movies. What did you think we were going to come out with?”

The Velvets were also a rock band, with roots in that ferment but ambitions charged by the other modern action around them. “There was close competition with Bob Dylan,” Cale admits. “He was getting into people’s heads. We thought we could do that.”“Maybe our frustrations led the way,” Morrison said of White Light/White Heat. “But we were already pretty much into it. We had good amps, good distortion devices. We were the first American band to have an endorsement deal with Vox.” The album, he contended, “was just us using the Vox amps and playing them emphatically.

”“They say rock is life-affirming music,” Reed says. “You feel bad, you put on two minutes of this – boom. There’s something implicit in it. And we were the best, the real thing. You listen to the Gymnasium tape [the live set included with December’s Deluxe reissue], this album – there is the real stuff. It’s aggressive, yes. But it’s not aggressive-bad. This is aggressive, going to God.”

The Velvets’ volume and aggression posed problems for the recording men, and Reed insisted that Kellgren simply walked out during Sister Ray. “At one point, he turns to us and says, ‘You do this. When you’re done, call me.’ Which wasn’t far from the record company’s attitude. Everything we did – it came out. No one censured it. Because no one listened to it.”

 On Sister Ray, Reed sang live across the feral seesawing of the guitars, drums and Cale’s Vox organ as each pressed for dominance in the mix. “It was competition,” Cale says. “Everyone was hellbent on being heard.” The ending, though, was easy. “We just knew when it was over,” Morrison remembered. “It felt like ending. And it did.

”There was a real Sister Ray: “This black queen,” Reed says. “John and I were uptown, out on the street, and up comes this person – very nice, but flaming.” Reed wrote the words, a set of incidents and character studies, on a train ride from Connecticut after a bad Velvets show there. “It was a propos of nothing. ‘Duck and Sally inside’ – it’s a taste of Selby, uptown. And the music was just a jam we had been working on” – provisionally titled Searchin’, after one of the lyrics (“I’m searchin’ for my mainline”).

“The lyrics aren’t negative,” Reed argues. “White Light/White Heat – it has to do with methamphetamine. Sister Ray is all about that. But they are telling you stories – and feelings. They are not stupid. And the rhythm is interesting. But you’d think that. I studied long enough.”White Light/White Heat is renowned for its distortion and unforgiving thrust. But it also features the simple, airy yearning of Here She Comes Now, one of the Velvets’ finest ballads.

And there are telling, human details even in the noise, like the breakdown at the end of White Light/White Heat, when Cale’s frantic, repetitive bass playing leaps forward in an out-of-time spasm. “I’m pretty sure it broke down,” he says of his part, “because my hand was falling off.”


 Lady Godiva’s Operation was, Cale explains, “a radio-theatre piece, trying to use the studio to create this panorama of a story” – lust, transfiguration and ominously vague surgery that goes fatally wrong.

The Gift was just the band and Cale’s rich Welsh intonation. Reed wrote the story – an examination of nerd-ish obsession peppered with wily minutiae (the Clarence Darrow Post Office) and ending in sudden death – at Syracuse University, for a creative writing class. Reed: “The idea was two things going at once” – Cale in one stereo channel, music in the other. “If you got tired of the words, you could just listen to the instrumental.”Cale’s reading was a first take. The sound of the blade plunging through the cardboard, “right through the centre of Waldo Jeffers’ head,” was Reed stabbing a canteloupe with a knife.

Frank Zappa, also working at Mayfair with The Mothers Of Invention, was there. “He said, ‘You’ll get a better sound if you do it this way,’” Reed recalled. “And then he says, ‘You know, I’m really surprised how much I like your album,’” referring to the ‘Banana’ LP. “Surprised? OK.” Reed smiled. “He was being friendly.

”Wayne McGuire’s ecstatic review of White Light/White Heat, in a 1968 issue of rock magazine Crawdaddy, cited Reed’s playing in “I Heard Her Call My Name” as “the most advanced lead guitar work I think you’re going to hear for at least a year or two.” McGuire also noted the jazz in there, comparing the album – especially Sister Ray – to recordings by Cecil Taylor and the saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. “Sister Ray is much like [Coltrane’s] Impressions,” McGuire wrote, “in that it is a sustained exercise in emotional stampede and modal in the deepest sense: mode as spiritual motif, mode as infinite musical universe.”


John has said we didn’t get to finish what we started – that is sadly true,” Reed acknowledged. “However, as far as we got, that was monumental.” White Light/White Heat, everything leading to it and gathered here – “I would match it,” he says, “with anything by anybody, anywhere, ever. No group in the world can touch what we did.”Back in 1994,


Moe Tucker was asked about the fuzz and chaos of White Light/White Heat – how much they reflected the daily trials and tensions of being The Velvet Underground, always first and alone in their ideals and attack. She replied with her usual, common sense: “I don’t know if I go along with that. The songs were the songs, and the way we played them was the way we each wanted to play them.”Anything else, she declared with a grin, was “a little too philosophical.”
 

PatReilly wrote:

Call of the Valley? I preferred Brimful of Asha.......

.

Some people have said that The View's "Same Jeans" had borrowed bits of that song, if you ever hear it again you can see what they mean, of course could well be  a coincidence.

DAY 105.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience......................Axis: Bold As Love     (1967)






.Axis: Bold As Love, was for me me a step up from "Are You Experienced" although a lot of critics weren't so impressed with it I personally preferred this one.

This album in my humble opinion seemed to be more about the lyrics and bit less about guitar humping (and more power to it I say.) Side 1 was No' bad, kicking off with EXP the less said the better, but I did like "Litttle Wing" which was one of only a couple tunes on the album that they played live, at the time they couldn't recreate the studio versions live.


Side 2 was a hell of a lot better, liked all the tracks, "One Rainy Wish" and "Little Miss Lover" were very good , but the stand out on the album for me was "Castles Made Of Sand"

Summing up, liked this a whole lot better than their last album, but have to say I shouldn't think it would get played enough to warrant buying it, so it wont be getting added.



Bits & Bobs.

All of what would be the first side of the 1967 album, Axis: Bold As Love,vanished on Halloween, 31 October 1967 after a marathon recording session. Hendrix was pleased, especially with If 6 Was 9, "I adore it. That was a complete jam, then we put words on afterwards. That's me on the flute. Gary Leeds and Graham Nash did some foot stomping and Chas Chandler's big feet on the fade out."

  Evidently Hendrix insisted on taking the masters home 'for safekeeping.' Chandler recalled he went to a party somewhere with them, and when he got back, he'd left a box of tapes in a taxi. It was all ready for release, so that was a major blow.
 Back into Olympic Studio the next night and the team mixed the entire A side again. If 6 Was 9 proved the hardest to recreate. Noel Redding, bass player, had a seven-and-half inch per second tape on a small three-inch reel. A taxi was sent to fetch it. It was wrinkled from being used on domestic machines; they ironed it! It was copied onto 15 IPS, and then onto the album.

 Some thought Hendrix had suffered a genuine mishap in forgetting the tapes; others that he'd done it deliberately, as it hadn't reached his standards.Whatever it was, if that taxi driver had realised what he'd found in his cab, he would have made money! Unless the tapes are sitting in an attic, awaiting discovery...


Spanish Castle Magic;



 When Hendrix was living in Seattle, it was a very segregated city. The Spanish Castle was, in the '60s, the Premier teen night club in the Seattle area, but Jimi's bands never played there. Eventually, Hendrix left Seattle and made history.




 Noel Redding played a 8-string Hagstrom bass on this. At that time, there were only 2 of these instruments in the country: Redding's one and a left-hand model for Hendrix.




 Hendrix used his octavia device on his guitar, which could alter the pitch. He also used the octavia on "Purple Haze."


Hendrix played the piano on this song



Little Wing;


This song was inspired by the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, a concert held during 3 days of the "Summer of Love" (1967) featuring The Who, The Byrds, Janis Joplin, and many others. Attended by about 200,000 music fans, it happened 2 years before Woodstock. Jimi wrote about the atmosphere at the festival as if it was a girl. He described the feeling as "Everybody really flying and in a nice mood." He named it "Little Wing" because he thought it could just fly away.



 The guitar on the song is played in a very unique style. Jimi frets the roots of chords with his thumb, and then elaborates on them. It often involves shifts of quartile to tertian harmony and vice versa. In theory it is quite similar to the Jazz style of chord melody.



The song is particularly revered among guitar players. Tom Morello wrote in this 2011 tribute to Hendrix in Rolling Stone: "It's just this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don't appear in any music books."


 The percussion instrument that sounds like a xylophone is a glockenspiel, an instrument popular in marching bands containing steel bars that are stuck with hammers to produce notes.


 Jimi ran his guitar through a Leslie speaker to create an unusual sound. The Leslie speaker was designed for organs and contains a rotating paddle that distorts the sound.


 In 1963 Jimi recorded a song that may have been a precursor to this. The song "Fox," which was one of his first recordings was played with sax player Lonnie Youngblood and sounded very similar to this.


 This is one of the songs that had to be remixed just before the album was released when one of the master tapes went missing. No one ever found out what happened to the original tape but its been speculated that Jimi either accidentally left the tape in a taxi or purposely disposed of the tape because he wasn't satisfied with its sound.


 This song, along with "Spanish Castle Magic," are the only songs Hendrix ever performed in concert from his Axis: Bold as Love album. He played this live only 8 times.


 Hendrix has described this as being one of the few he likes from this album. He said "Little Wing" is "like one of those beautiful girls that come around sometimes." Hendrix enjoyed writing slow songs because it was easier to put emotion into them.


The same day they recorded "Layla" Eric Clapton and Duane Allman recorded this as a tribute to Jimi, who was one of their guitar heroes. Hendrix died 9 days later. He never heard their version of his song, which was released in 1970 on the Derek and the Dominos album, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs.


Castles Made Of Sand;



This is one of Hendrix' most autobiographical and personal songs. He hated talking about his past, and avoided it during press conferences and interviews.


Hendrix played all of the lead guitar parts backwards, then rewound the recording of the lead guitar parts to the song to get that effect you hear in the beginning and in the middle of the song. >>


Hendrix' mother was a Cherokee Indian, and in this song he identifies with his heritage as a Native American.


Hendrix read the words for this song as a poem instead of singing them. >>


The Red Hot Chili Peppers were all big fans of Jimi Hendrix and often perform this song live.


She's So Fine;



This is one of the few songs Hendrix performed that was written by a member of his band. Noel Redding, who played bass in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, came up with this with little help from Hendrix. It was the first song recorded for Axis:Bold As Love


One Rainy Wish;



This song uses a complex rhythm. It's mostly in 3/4, but switches to 4/4 for the chorus.


 Hendrix used an octavia on this, which is a device that could raise or lower a guitar by an octave. Roger Mayer developed the octavia for Hendrix.


 This is also known as "Golden Rose."


 Brian May covered this on his 1998 solo album Another World featuring Cozy Powell on drums and Neil Murray on bass.

This song discusses many colors: "In shiny metallic purple armor; fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground." Because of Hendrix' inability to read music, he would often describe emotions (and music) in colors rather than more descriptive words. Jimi was a very emotional and colorful person, and in this song he really brought out his emotions in a wild imagery that at first glance can be easily misinterpreted.


 The line "My Yellow is this case is Not so Mellow" is a reference to the Donovan song "Mellow Yellow" and describes Hendrix' inability to express his feelings to a former girlfriend in any conventional way. So Hendrix used colors to describe his feelings of fright, uncertainty and frustration. It's that frustration that leads him to say at the end of the song: "And all of these emotions of mine is holding me from giving my life to a Rainbow like you."


 Originally released in December of 1967 in the UK, Axis: Bold As Love was held over until mid-January 1968 in the US. The album reached #5 in the UK and #3 in the US. This is the last song on the album, used to sum it all up.

 Hendrix rarely played this in concert, but he did on at least one occasion: February 28th, 1968 at the Scene Club, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the show, Hendrix stated that he was about to play "Bold As Love" and then improvised after the opening. Hendrix would often call his songs something other than their official titles. For example, "Fire" would be "Stand Next To Your Fire."


 According to his bass player Noel Redding, the music was very spontaneous, but they took 27 takes to finish it. Take 21 can be heard on their 4 CD set.


 John Mayer covered this song on his 2006 album Continuum. Mayer was influenced by musicians of this era, especially Hendrix and Eric Clapton. As a child, after hearing the song "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix, Mayer decided to learn how to play the guitar.



 

DAY 106.
Aretha Franklin.......................I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You    (1967)






Anybody can tell you Aretha was the queen of soul, although her accession was hardly obstacle free. Before signing to Atlantic in 1966, Franklin had spent six years, and nine albums with Columbia, who curbed her innate soulfulness and turned her into a singer of supper club standards.


Released from Columbia's constraints, Aretha soon became soul royalty by her powerful expression of sentiment as much as by sentiment itself. You cannot but be moved by this extraordinary album.

DAY 106.
Aretha Franklin.......................I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You    (1967)






Jesus!   Straight out the traps with "Respect" an absolute belting cover of the Otis Redding's song, and into "Drown in my own tears" with a voice that is so powerful, and yet can sometimes sound fragile, but always seemingly  effortlessly used by Franklin.

The title track is up next, again the vocals screams of a lady who is totally intertwined with every beat of music in the song, this is what hit me about the whole album, she seemed to be at ease and naturally a part of all the tracks, almost as if they were all hers.

Trying to pick my favourite track, I've more chance of picking the winning lottery ticket.

Whoever picked the songs, and the track order, please take a bow!

But where were you when Mixu couldn't pick his nose?

This album will be a welcome addition to my collection.

Please give it a listen, and ruminate in that magical voice.



Bits & Bobs;
Known as the "Queen Of Soul," Franklin is known for her powerful voice. She is also known as a Diva - VH1 devoted a special in her honor with the 2001 show VH1 Divas Live: The One and Only Aretha Franklin.


 In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

 She was married to her manager, Ted White, from 1962-1969. Aretha refuses to discuss this.


 She has a lifelong fear of flying, and after a shaky flight aboard a twin-engine plane in 1984, she has refused to fly. This has limited her touring considerably, and cost her the lead role in a musical biography of Mahalia Jackson.

 Aretha is a talented piano player. She played on her 1967 hit "Respect"


 She played a waitress in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers.


 In 2008, she was voted Greatest Singer Of All Time by the musicians and journalists selected by Rolling Stone magazine to name their favorite singers of the Rock era. Following Aretha were Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke and John Lennon. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France, for all above)



According to her concert contract, Aretha Franklin likes to receive $25,000 of her performance fee in cash on the night of a concert. The rider for her live shows also states that the Queen of Soul and her security personnel must be accommodated in hotel rooms below the 5th floor.


 Aretha Franklin held the mark for the most Hot 100 entries among women from 1977 until 2017, when Nicki Minaj overtook the Queen of Soul's total of 73 visits to the chart.  (Take that in, Nicki f'kn Minaj)


 Aretha Franklin's voice was legally declared one of Michigan's natural resources in 1985.


Respect;

Otis Redding wrote this and originally recorded it in 1965, with his version hitting #35 in the US. Redding said of the song shortly before his death in 1967: "That's one of my favorite songs because it has a better groove than any of my records. It says something, too: 'What you want, baby, you got it; what you need, baby, you got it; all I'm asking for is a little respect when I come home.' The song lines are great. The band track is beautiful. It took me a whole day to write it and about twenty minutes to arrange it. We cut it once and that was it. Everybody wants respect, you know."


 Redding's version consisted of only verses - no chorus or bridge. Aretha appropriated King Curtis' sax solo from Sam & Dave's "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby," which he recorded the previous night for Stax Records, and used that for the bridge.


 Franklin's cover is by far the best-known version, but this was an important song for Otis Redding. It was just his second Top 40 hit, following "I've Been Loving You Too Long To Stop Now," and it helped establish Redding on mainstream radio. Otis also performed the song at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; this was a defining performance for the singer, who died in a plane crash six months later.


 It was Aretha's idea to cover this song. She came up with the arrangement, added the "Sock it to me" lines, and played piano on the track. Her sister Carolyn, who sang backup on the album, also helped with the song.


 Aretha recorded this in New York City with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, a group of four studio musicians who also played sessions in Nashville and Muscle Shoals, Alabama before starting their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. This was one of their first, and most famous recordings. They went on to work with Wilson Pickett, Paul Simon, Bob Seger and The Staple Singers.


 Jerry Wexler produced this. He played a big role in unleashing Aretha's talent. Wexler said in his autobiography, Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American Music: "The fervor in Aretha's voice demanded that respect; and more respect also involved sexual attention of the highest order. What else would 'sock it to me' mean?"


 Tom Dowd was the engineer for this session. He worked for Atlantic Records, who had an arrangement with Stax, which is where Otis Redding recorded. Dowd worked with Redding, which led to Aretha's cover. In the documentary Tom Dowd And The Language Of Music, Dowd talked about working with Franklin on this song: "I walked out into the studio and said, 'What's the next song?' Aretha starts singing it to me, I said, 'I know that song, I made it with Otis Redding like three years ago.' The first time I recorded 'Respect,' was on the Otis Blue album, and she picked up on it. She and Carolyn were the ones who conceived of it coming from the woman's point of view instead of the man's point of view, and when it came to the middle, Carolyn said, 'Take care, TCB.' Aretha jumped on it and that was how we did 'Respect.'"




The lyric "Take care, TCB" is often misheard. "TCB" means "Taking Care of Business."


 Aretha's line, "Sock it to me," became a catch phrase on the TV show Laugh In in the '70s. The line was also used in the song "Come On Sock It To Me" by the soul singer Syl Johnson, also in 1967.




This line is often heard as a sexual reference, but Aretha denies this. "There was nothing sexual about that," she told Rolling Stone in 2014.


 Franklin had just signed with Atlantic Records, and when her single "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" became a hit, and Atlantic quickly arranged the sessions that produced "Respect" so she could put out an album to accompany the single. Aretha went on to release her biggest hits with Atlantic and became known as the "Queen Of Soul."


 Before Aretha broke through and became the Queen of Soul, Etta James was the more popular singer. After this was released, James tried to resurrect her career by releasing her own cover of an Otis Redding song: She did a version of Redding's "Security," but it barely got noticed.


  
This was Aretha's first song to chart in the UK, where it made #10.


 Many believe that Aretha was drawing on her own tumultuous marriage at the time for inspiration. Jerry Wexler commented: "If she didn't live it, she couldn't give it... But, Aretha would never play the part of the scorned woman.... Her middle name was Respect." (Quotes from Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 Songs)


 When asked why the song is so successful, Aretha explained, "Everyone wants to be respected."


 In the second verse, Franklin proclaims to her man that she is about to give him all her money, and that all she's asking is for him to give her "her propers," when he gets home. This term would evolve into "props," commonly used in Hip-Hop in the context of proper respect.


 In 1989 the American R&B vocalist Adeva had a #17 hit in the UK with her house version of this song. It was her debut hit and coincidentally her next 2 releases also peaked at #17. She never achieved a higher chart placing.


 A Long Island group called The Vagrants released their version of this song shortly before Franklin's came out. The Vagrants recording tanked, and the group soon called it quits, but their bass player Felix Pappalardi and guitarist Leslie West went on to form Mountain, who played at Woodstock and had an enduring hit with "Mississippi Queen."


 Aretha Franklin sings this song in the movie Blues Brothers 2000. She also appeared in the original Blues Brothers movie, performing "Think."


 Sax player Charlie Chalmers played in the horn section alongside King Curtis and Willie Bridges. Chalmers intended to take on the famous solo until Curtis started wailing away. He explained to Cleveland's The Plain Dealer in 2011: "When the horn solo came up, which I was ready to play because I'd been playing it on the other takes, Curtis jumped in there and took that solo, man. He was so good. Even though he pushed me out of the way... it was the right thing to do."


I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You;

Aretha Franklin recorded for Columbia Records from 1960-1966, never charting higher on the Hot 100 than #37. In 1967, she signed with Atlantic and released "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" as her debut single with the label, and it became the first Top 10 hit for the Queen of Soul.




The song was written by Ronnie Shannon, and her recording of the blues-based ballad established the singer as a superstar. Shannon also wrote Franklin's "Baby I Love You."




In The Billboard Book of #1 R&B Hits, Shannon explained: "The idea was to write an original soul message. Not knowing exactly where to begin, I decided to let vivid imagination be my guide."



More than any other artist, Aretha Frankin is known for bringing the Muscle Shoals Sound to the forefront, even though this was the only song she actually recorded in Muscle Shoals. The session took place at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler sent Aretha to record there, as he and engineer Tom Down were very impressed with the musicians, who played on the hits "When A Man Loves A Woman" by Percy Sledge and "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett.




They pulled off the session, but Aretha's husband/manager Ted White had beef with one of the horn players, resulting in a legendary incident that David Hood recalled in our 2012 interview. Hood became the bass player in the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, but at this session, he was playing trombone. Said Hood, "Ken Laxton, the trumpet player, was making remarks to Aretha that he thought were kind of cool and hip and all that. And Aretha and her husband Ted thought, 'Who is this white guy talking smart and trying to jive with us?' And it was taken wrong, I think. I don't think he was really trying to cause problems. But it was taken wrong, and people were drinking on the session - not me, but some people were - and it just got blown out of proportion and it ended up in a big argument and ended the session. So that's why Aretha didn't record in Muscle Shoals after that. She left."




Aretha left and the song was completed in New York. The sound was a perfect fit for Aretha, and Jerry Wexler decided that instead of trying to send the singer back to Muscle Shoals, he would bring the musicians to New York to work with her. Wexler had the Muscle Shoals players Tommy Cogbill (bass), Roger Hawkings (drums), Spooner Oldham (keyboards), and Jimmy Johnson (rhythm guitar) fly to New York and complete the album with Aretha, which went so well that they repeated the process for her next three albums, with the guys traveling up from Alabama each time.




These were Aretha's seminal recordings, and as she shot to fame, other musicians sought out her sound and commissioned these Muscle Shoals musicians, who established their own studios - Muscle Shoals Sound Studios - in 1969. Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart and The Rolling Stones all recorded there. Stewart, and many of the other acts who came through, was shocked to find that the Aretha Franklin Soul sound he traveled so far to get was created by a group of white guys.


In this song Aretha plays a victim, somebody helplessly attached to a no-good, heartbreaking, cheating liar. On her next single "Respect" Franklin took on an entirely different role, that of a sexually confident woman. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section backed Aretha on that one as well.


This is ranked #186 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

shedboy, I'm normally trying to let arabchanter have his say first, but

got to disagree with you. This is one of my favourite Stones albums.

Every song is fantastic, Parachute Woman and Factory Girl being two of the best.

However, it's also good we don't all like the same stuff.

DAY 107.
The Rolling Stones ....................Beggars Banquet    (1968)



 




This is the album cover The Stones wanted originally, The front and back cover of the double-fold album is a photograph of a bathroom wall. On it, the Stones, particularly Mick, have scrawled a variety of fantastically funny things, including the album title, the name of the group (underneath the name of the group it says "God Rolls His Own), credits, appropriate line drawings, slogans like "Wot, No Paper?" and "Music From Big Brown." That's the least of it. It is a fantastic thing, altogether, very Rolling Stones-ish and a beautiful record jacket. The photo was done by Barry Feinstein, the graphics by Tom Wilkes. Unfortunately it was rejected by the band's record company, and their unsuccessful dispute delayed the album's release for months.



This album in many peoples eyes was the one that saved The Stones, but for me I only see it as one of the best Stones albums ever, there is another that I think could possibly if not beat, would at the least be on par with, but will wait and see if that appears in the book.


Opening up with the up tempo "Sympathy For The Devil," then  slowing it down to the beautiful but also haunting  "No Expectations" the album see-saws from the energy of "Street Fighting Man" to the Leadbellyesque " Prodical Son" which was probably my favourite track on this fine album, even though it was the only track not written by The Stones. "Stones" for me had a bit of a Hendrix influence going on, but on the whole apart from "Jigsaw Puzzle" which I didn't think was to hot, the rest of the album was The Stones  as I like to think of them.

Sometimes I wonder, with the best of intentions, if you can be totally honest and treat every album with the same level of equality, and without any prejudice. Case in point "Dear Doctor" I liked this track, but here's a thing if I heard this being sung by say Merle Haggard or Loretta Lynn, would I have liked as much?
I would like to think so, but who knows?


Anyways I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and this will now become Stones album number three, to be added to my library.


Bits & Bobs;



Sympathy For The Devil

This perpetuated the image of the Stones as frightening bad boys, as opposed to the clean-cut Beatles. It was great marketing for the band, who got some press by implying an interest in the Occult.


 
The lyrics were inspired by The Master and Margarita a book by Mikhail Bulgakov. British singer Marianne Faithfull was Mick Jagger's girlfriend at the time and she gave him the book. Faithfull came from an upper-class background and exposed Jagger to a lot of new ideas. In the book, the devil is a sophisticated socialite, a "man of wealth and taste."


 Jagger claims this is about the dark side of man, not a celebration of Satanism.


 A documentary by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard called One Plus One captured the recording of this song, which took place over five days: June 5, 6, 8 - 10, 1968. At one point, a lamp for the documentary started a fire in the studio. The tapes were saved, but a lot of the Stones' equipment was destroyed.


 
The original title was "The Devil Is My Name." Says Jagger: "Songs can metamorphasize. And Sympathy for the Devil is one of those songs that started off like one thing, I wrote it one way and then we started the change the rhythm. And then it became completely different. And then it got very exciting. It started off as a folk song and then became a samba. A good song can become anything. It's got lots of historical references and lots of poetry."


 
Keith Richards (2002): "Sympathy is quite an uplifting song. It's just a matter of looking the Devil in the face. He's there all the time. I've had very close contact with Lucifer - I've met him several times. Evil - people tend to bury it and hope it sorts itself out and doesn't rear its ugly head. Sympathy for the Devil is just as appropriate now, with 9/11. There it is again, big time. When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. It was the first sort of international chaos since World War II. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love. You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can't hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. Sympathy for the Devil is a song that says, Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job."


 The Stones played this at the Altamont Speedway concert in 1969 before a fan was fatally stabbed. The crowd got more unruly as the song went on. The Stones were playing "Under My Thumb" when the stabbing occurred, but they did not perform "Sympathy For The Devil" for 7 years after the incident due to the public outcry.


 
Some of the historical events mentioned in this song are the crucifixion of Christ, the Russian Revolution, World War II, and the Kennedy Assassinations. Robert Kennedy was killed after this was written, but they changed the lyrics to get in the timely reference.


 
Other historical events alluded to in the song include the 100 years war ("fought for ten decades") and the Holocaust ("and the furnace stank").


 
The "whoo-whoo" backing vocals were added when Richard's girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, did it during a take and the Stones liked how it sounded. Pallenberg sang it on the record along with Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, Marianne Faithfull and Jimmy Miller.


Stones producer Jimmy Miller: "Anita (Pallenberg) was the epitome of what was happening at the time. She was very Chelsea. She'd arrive with the elite film crowd. During Sympathy for the Devil when I started going whoo, whoo in the control room, so did they I had the engineer set up a mike so they could go out in the studio and whoo, whoo."


 
On their 1989 Steel Wheels tour, The Stones performed this with Jagger standing high above the stage next to a fire. Mick wore a safety belt in case he fell.


 
The Stones performed this on Rock and Roll Circus, a British TV special The Stones taped in 1968 but never aired. It was released on video in 1995. During the performance, Jagger removes his shirt to reveal devil tattoos on his chest and arms.


 
Guns 'N' Roses covered this in 1994 for the move Interview With The Vampire (the song appears at the end of the movie, which stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and a young Kirsten Dunst). Their version hit #9 in England, and marked the first appearance of their new guitarist Paul Huge (rhymes with "boogie" - he later went by "Tobias"), who replaced Gilby Clarke. Axl Rose brought in Huge, and it caused considerable conflict in the band, which broke apart over the next few years. At one point, Matt Sorum called Huge "the Yoko Ono of GNR."




The song ended up being the last one Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan recorded together. "If you've ever wondered what the sound of a band breaking up sounds like, listen to Guns N' Roses' cover of 'Sympathy for the Devil,'" Slash wrote in his memoir.


The beat is based on a Samba rhythm. Says Richards: "Sympathy for the Devil started as sort of a folk song with acoustics, and ended up as a kind of mad samba, with me playing bass and overdubbing the guitar later. That's why I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned beforehand."


 
The opening lines of this song, "Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste" were quoted by The Devil character (played by actor Rick Collins) in the film The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie.

In 2003, The Stones released this as a "maxi-single," with four versions of the song. The original was on there, as well as remixes by The Neptunes, Fatboy Slim, and Full Phatt.


 
The industrial band Laibach released an entire album containing different covers of this. The character and tone of the Laibach covers are largely very different from the Stones original. In the opening track the lead singer sings/shouts in a very deep bass voice with a thick Slavic accent. One of their covers contains references to the violence at the Altamont raceway.



 Some other worthy covers: Sandra Bernhard, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Bryan Ferry, Jane's Addiction, The London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Merchant, U2.


 
One verse of lyrics was recited by Intel Vice President Steve McGeady during his testimony in Microsoft's antitrust trial in November 1998. McGeady had written a memo about Microsoft with the subject "Sympathy For The Devil," and when asked whether he was calling Microsoft the devil, McGeady recited the passage about using your well-learned politesse.


  
The "Troubadours who got killed before they reached Bombay" refers to the hippies who traveled the "Hippie Trail" by road. Many on them were killed and ripped off by drug peddlers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those shady deals were probably the "traps."

 
Jagger (1995): "It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. But forgetting the cultural colors, it is a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece. It becomes less pretentious because it's a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good."


 
Jagger (1995): "I knew it was a good song. You just have this feeling. It had its poetic beginning, and then it had historic references and then philosophical jottings and so on. It's all very well to write that in verse, but to make it into a pop song is something different. Especially in England - you're skewered on the altar of pop culture if you become pretentious."


   The line "And I laid traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay" possibly refers to the notorious Thuggee cult, who worshiped Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. They would waylay travelers on the roads of India, then kill the entire group in order to make off with their valuables. This seems to be the closest well known historical incident to fit the lyrics. Also, the Thuggee would have been well known in England, since the British Army put a stop to the cult during the colonial period.


No Expectations

Then Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones died in 1969, this song took on new meaning, as lyrics like "Our love is like our music, it's here and then it's gone" made it a fitting elegy. Mick Jagger explained: "That's Brian (Jones) playing steel guitar. We were sitting around in a circle on the floor, singing and playing, recording with open mikes. That was the last time I remember Brian really being totally involved in something that was really worth doing. He was there with everyone else. It's funny how you remember - but that was the last moment I remember him doing that, because he had just lost interest in everything."


 The Stones performed this on Rock and Roll Circus, a British TV special The Stones taped in 1968, but never aired. Brian Jones played this with a passion he was clearly losing as drugs took over his life. Rock and Roll Circus was released on video in 1995.


 Nicky Hopkins, who also played with The Who and The Beatles, played piano on this.



Dear Doctor


This song is about a man who tries to dull the pain of his wedding day with alcohol. The song has a drunken sloppy feel to it.


 
Along with Keith Richards, Dave Mason  played acoustic guitar on this track. Mason was a member of the group Traffic, which Jimmy Miller produced before working with The Stones. Mason also recorded with Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney & Wings, Blondie and Fleetwood Mac.


 
Mick Jagger on playing country music: "As far as country music was concerned, we used to play country songs, but we'd never record them - or we recorded them but never released them. Keith and I had been playing Johnny Cash records and listening to the Everly Brothers - who were SO country - since we were kids. I used to love country music even before I met Keith. I loved George Jones and really fast, s--t-kicking country music, though I didn't really like the maudlin songs too much... the country songs, like "Factory Girl" or "Dear Doctor" on Beggars Banquet were really pastiche. There's a sense of humor in country music, anyway, a way of looking at life in a humorous kind of way - and I think we were just acknowledging that element of the music."



Parachute Woman
The Stones recorded a track of the music into an old mono cassette recorder to get a distinctive sound on this.


 
Performed in a Blues style, this song is loaded with sexual metaphors.


 
Mick Jagger played the harmonica on this track.



 The Rolling Stones performed this on Rock and Roll Circus, a British TV special The Stones taped in 1968 but never aired. A series of musical acts and circus performances, it was released on video in 1995




Street Fighting Man




This song deals with civil unrest in Europe and America in 1968. There were student riots in London and Paris, and Vietnam protests in America. The specific event that led Mick Jagger to write the lyrics was a demonstration at Grosvenor Square in London on March 17, 1968. Jagger (along with Vanessa Redgrave), joined an estimated 25,000 protesters in condemning the Vietnam War.




The demonstrators marched to the American embassy, where the protest turned violent. Mounted police charged the crowd, which responded by throwing rocks and smoke bombs. About 200 people were taken to the hospital and another 246 arrested. Jagger didn't make it to the embassy: before the protest turned violent, he abandoned it, returning to his home in nearby Cheyne Walk. Jagger realized that his celebrity was a hindrance to the protest, as his presence distracted from the cause.


 
This was the first Stones song to make a powerful political statement, although with an air of resignation. Jagger opens the song declaring "that the time is right for fighting in the street," but goes on to sing, "But what can a poor boy do, 'cept sing in a rock and roll band."




This sense of hopelessness in the face of atrocity may be why the Rolling Stones became apolitical, focusing their efforts on songs about relationships and rock n' roll. In the process, they became very rich and beloved by members of all political persuasion.


 
In the US, this was released as a single on August 31, 1968, just a few days after the Democratic National Convention, which took place August 26-29. The convention was marred by violence, as Chicago police clashed with protesters. When the song was released, every radio station in Chicago (and most in the rest of the country), refused to play it for fear that it would incite more violence. There was no official ban in America or Chicago, but stations knew it was in their best interest to shun the song, which accounts for its meager chart position of #48.

Mick Jagger later said: "The radio stations that banned the song told me that 'Street Fighting Man' was subversive. 'Of course it's subversive,' we said. It's stupid to think you can start a revolution with a record. I wish you could!"


 The original title of this song was "Did Everybody Pay Their Dues?" It had completely different lyrics and therefore altogether a different and rather strange meaning: Jagger sings about an Indian chief and his family. The music however was basically the same (slightly alternative mixes exist) - but the lead guitar over the chorus was omitted on the final mix of "Street Fighting Man." Fairly listenable versions have appeared on various bootlegs.


 Keith Richards created a distinctive guitar sound on this track using a technique he also used on "Jumpin' Jack Flash" where his acoustic guitar was overdubbed several times. Says Richards: "Street Fighting Man was all acoustics. There's no electric guitar parts in it. Even the high-end lead part was through a cassette player with no limiter. Just distortion. Just two acoustics, played right into the mike, and hit very hard. There's a sitar in the back, too. That would give the effect of the high notes on the guitar. And Charlie was playing his little 1930s drummer's practice kit. It was all sort of built into a little attaché case, so some drummer who was going to his gig on the train could open it up - with two little things about the size of small tambourines without the bells on them, and the skin was stretched over that. And he set up this little cymbal, and this little hi-hat would unfold. Charlie sat right in front of the microphone with it. I mean, this drum sound is massive. When you're recording, the size of things has got nothing to do with it. It's how you record them. Everything there was totally acoustic. The only electric instrument on there is the bass guitar, which I overdubbed afterwards. What I was after with all of those - Street Fighting Man, Jumping Jack Flash - was to get the drive and dryness of an acoustic guitar but still distort it. They were all attempts at that."




Dave Mason did session work on this track. He played the shelani, an Indian reed instrument. Mason went on to form the group Traffic, and has played guitar on albums by Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Fleetwood Mac.



Mick Jagger said of this song: "It was a very strange time in France. But not only in France but also in America, because of the Vietnam War and these endless disruptions.... I wrote a lot of the melody and all the words, and Keith and I sat around and made this wonderful track, with Dave Mason playing the shelani on it live. It's a kind of Indian reed instrument a bit like a primitive clarinet. It comes in at the end of the tune. It has a very wailing, strange sound."



In the US, the single was originally released with a picture on the sleeve of police beating protesters in Los Angeles. The music was different on this version, with different vocals and more piano. This single was quickly pulled by the record company and is now a rare collectors item.



The Stones released this the same month The Beatles came out with "Revolution," which was their first blatantly political song.



A number of sources claim that this song was inspired by the radicalism of a young student leader Tariq Ali, who was active in revolutionary socialist politics in Britain in the late '60s. In an interview with the April 19, 2007 edition of the Galway Advertiser, Ali, who is now a writer and filmmaker, confirmed this. "Yes, its true. Jagger was/is an artist. He writes and sings what he wants."
In the UK, this wasn't released as a single until July 1971.


Rod Stewart covered this on his 1973 album Sing It Again Rod. Rage Against The Machine covered this on their 2000 album Renegades.



Mick Jagger said in 1995: "I'm not sure if it really has any resonance for the present day. I don't really like it that much. I thought it was a very good thing at the time. There was all this violence going on. I mean, they almost toppled the government in France; De Gaulle went into this complete funk, as he had in the past, and he went and sort of locked himself in his house in the country. And so the government was almost inactive. And the French riot police were amazing. Yeah, it was a direct inspiration, because by contrast, London was very quiet."



Engineer Eddie Kramer recalled to Uncut in a 2016 interview: "The beginning of Street Fighting Man? My recollection is that Jimmy Miller brought in a Wollensak - a cassette machine with one mic built in - stuck it on the floor, pressed 'Record' and the band just make a circle round it. And that was the basic track. Now, of course, Keith says it was his idea and his tape machine, but I don't remember it that way."


Prodigal Son




This song was written by Robert Wilkins, a reverend who recorded Delta Blues in the 1920s and 1930s. Keith Richards enjoyed Blues music and discovered the work of Wilkins in the '60s, which is how The Stones came across this song.



The Prodigal Son is a story told in the Bible about a father who has two sons. The younger son asks for his inheritance early, and goes off to spend the money on hedonistic pursuits. After wasting all the money, he comes home repentant, and the father welcomes him with a feast in his honor. This doesn't go over well with the older son, who feels that he should be rewarded for good behavior, but the father stresses the value of forgiveness.



Robert Wilkins' original version was titled "That's No Way To Get Along." The Stones gave their version the title "Prodigal Son."



In 1928 Wilkins wrote another song called "Rollin' Stone."


This is the only cover song on Beggar's Banquet. The Rolling Stones wanted to be a Blues band when they started out, but they became more Pop-oriented soon after they formed.



Factory Girl


This song is a great example of Mick Jagger taking on a persona, which he often did in his lyrics. Here, he sings from the perspective of a guy who is waiting for his girlfriend - a destitute, disheveled sort - to get out of work at the factory. It's quite a contrast to Jagger's reality: a glamorous rock star who often dated models.




Dave Mason, who did some session work for Jimi Hendrix and was a member of the band Traffic, played the mandolin on this song.



Ric Grech was brought in to play fiddle on this track. Grech was a violinist and bass player who was a member of the band Family in the '60s and went on to play in Blind Faith with Eric Clapton. He also played on Gram Parsons' solo albums in the '70s, and he appears on Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane's 1976 Mahoney's Last Stand project.



Drummer Charlie Watts: "On Factory Girl, I was doing something you shouldn't do, which is playing the tabla with sticks instead of trying to get that sound using your hand, which Indian tabla players do, though it's an extremely difficult technique and painful if you're not trained."



Guitarist Keith Richards: "To me 'Factory Girl' felt something like Molly Malone, an Irish jig; one of those ancient Celtic things that emerge from time to time, or an Appalachian song. In those days I would just come up and play something, sitting around the room. I still do that today."


 

Last edited by arabchanter (25/11/2017 9:38 am)