DAY 179.
Black Sabbath.......................Black Sabbath    (1970)









On the list for it's enormous influence rather than it's scintillating musical qualities. Black Sabbath's debut album is as weighty in reputation as it is in sonic depth.



With it's opening eponymous song routinely hailed as the unholy-trinity anthem (Black Sabbath on Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath) that kick started heavy metal, the dark,dark sleeve art and the sludgy production seeping all over the basic, bludgeoning songs, the record still sounds supremely evil today.



In reality, the band have explained on many occasions, the album sounds grim because they recorded it in two days with a tiny budget, and what's more, recorded it as a live band, volume peaks and all.



Had too much time on my hands yesterday (more time to drink) so never got the chance to listen to Spirit's album, so will do double tonight


 

DAY 179.
Black Sabbath.......................Black Sabbath    (1970)








Didn't know what to expect here to be honest, remembered I liked the single Paranoid, and I knew Osbourne had a habit of decapitating things wi' wings ( never knew if they were real or no') and fae thon At home wi' the Osbourne's or something like that, which I can only remember watching a couple of times, I can't see the big deal in watching somebody else's life, I've got enough trouble trying to look after my own.


Anyways back to the album, I was pleasantly surprised I really liked it and even though in my opinion it was mainly guitar driven, for me it was all the better for it, apart from yes you've guessed it the ten and a half minute "Warning" which I should have heeded and no' listened to it ( at least the last six minutes anyway.)


Loved the title track once it got going, also The Wizard, NIB and the Crow cover Evil Woman, all in all this is a very good album which I'm going to play a few more times before I decide on whether to buy or not, that subbies bench is beginning to groan under the weght,  with all my will I or will I no's



Bits & Bobs;


In 2005, Black Sabbath was finally inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. They had been overlooked seven times, prompting Ozzy to ask that the band be taken off the list, feeling it was a sham because fans don't vote for the inductees. The band's friend and neighbor, Brian May, inducted them. In 2006, the band was also inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tony Iommi was almost unable to take his award home with him because airport security told him that the large sculpture could be used as a weapon.


 
The band used to rehearse across from a movie theater. They got the idea to make scary music after seeing how much people enjoyed horror movies.


 
There is a 1964 Boris Karloff movie called Black Sabbath, but according to Tony Iommi, none of the band had seen the movie at the time.


 
Iommi joined Jethro Tull for two weeks in 1968. He appeared with Tull on The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus special, miming "A Song for Jeffrey." Iommi didn't like Jethro Tull's organization, in which he was treated more like an employee than a bandmate. However, he did learn by observing Tull's disciplined rehearsal routines, and brought that professional work ethic back to the band with Ozzy, Geezer, and Bill. Shortly after becoming more structured, the band started writing the songs that would later be recorded for Black Sabbath.




After working with Jethro Tull, Iommi bought a flute and occasionally played it live. For the most part, it didn't work out.


 
According to music historian William Ruhlmann, they originally called their jazz-blues band Polka Tulk, later renaming themselves Earth, and they played extensively in Europe. In early 1969, they decided to change their name again when they found that they were being mistaken for another group called Earth. Butler had written a song called "Black Sabbath" that took its title from a novel by occult writer Dennis Wheatley called The Devil Rides Out, in which a Satanic ritual called a Black Sabbath is described. The group adopted it as their new name and often played up the demonic angle, even though it was mostly an act. Ozzy once said: "The only black magic Sabbath ever got into was a box of chocolates."




Butler wrote most of the song lyrics by borrowing phrases from Ozzy's stream-of-consciousness vocal melodies and fleshing them out. Ozzy did very little writing until he left the band.



One of the candidates to replace Ozzy when he left in 1978 was Michael Bolotin, who would later change his name to Michael Bolton and sing soft rock. They went with Dio instead.



They were one of the first bands to be considered "Heavy Metal." The phrase was introduced by the 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born To Be Wild."



Osbourne's solo work did much better than the Black Sabbath material after he left.



Iommi used to date Lita Ford. Ozzy did a duet with her in 1989 - "Close My Eyes Forever."



Osbourne and Dio hated each other. One of Ozzy's tours featured a dwarf who Ozzy would call "Ronnie," referring to the vertically challenged Ronnie James Dio. Dio in turn refused to appear at any date in which Black Sabbath was slated to open for Ozzy's act, calling Ozzy a clown.



Their music is rather aggressive, but their worldview is not. Ozzy explained: "Sabbath were a hippie band. We were into peace."



Prior to the group truly coming together, Iommi worked in an industrial factory. He eventually decided to quit and become a full-time working guitarist. During the last few hours of his last day on the job, his hand became caught in a piece of equipment, severing the tips of his fingers on his right (fretting) hand.



Losing the tips of the fingers on your hand is a debilitating accident for a guitarist, but Iommi found a unique way to soldier on. After battling depression over the accident for quite some time, he was visited by his supervisor from the factory, who brought along some Django Reinhardt records. Reinhardt was a jazz guitarist from the mid-20th century who had a disability - several of his fingers had been fused together in a fire. When Iommi heard Reinhardt play (and after receiving a pep talk from his supervisor) he decided that he could overcome his misfortune. He tried various ways to cover and/or extend his fingertips, to dull the pain he now had when trying to play and to make the tips themselves move more easily over the strings. What he finally came up with was taking a plastic detergent bottle, melting it, shaping it into thimble-like prosthetics, sanding them down, and covering them with leather from several jackets until he found one with the right feel. After taking care to form the new tips to snugly fit his fingers, and experimenting with various bonding agents to secure them, Iommi found that he could play again with minimal pain.



All original members were from Aston, which is a suburb of Birmingham. They all lived in a one-mile radius from each other.



Dio helped popularize the "Rock Hand Symbol" of the two middle fingers and thumb in to the palm of the hand and the pinky and index finger out as a symbol to "Rock On." He got it from his grandmother because she used it towards what she believed to be evil people.




In their early embryonic days as the Polka Tulk Blues Band, the group also featured a slide guitarist and saxophone player. The rest of the band eventually reformed stealthily without them.



Despite going to the same (violent) school in Birmingham, Ozzy and Iommi never spoke to each other much until several years afterward, when they connected through an ad Ozzy had circulated about needing a band.



Early rejected band names included: "Fred Carno's Army" (suggested by manager Jim Simpson) and "Jimmy Underpass and the Six-Way Combo" (Ozzy's suggestion).



Upon writing their first original songs, the band immediately knew they had something good. It was dark and menacing and made extensive use of the tritone, a musical interval of notes that sound particularly tense, almost evil. The band soon grew tired of playing cover tunes, especially because their original material didn't mesh well with the blues that they'd been playing up until that point.


"Black Sabbath," the first song on the band's first album, includes what's been called the Devil's Tritone, a musical interval once considered "diabolus in musica" by medieval composers. As the band moved away from its blues origins, it was the perfect evil detour. (The three-note combination also appears more happily in the opening notes to "The Simpsons" theme song.)



Black Sabbath



This is the song that became the name of the band. They were playing clubs in Germany and using the name "Earth" when they realized another band had the same name. "Black Sabbath" was lifted from the title of a 1963 horror movie starring Boris Karloff that was directed by the Italian filmmaker Mario Bava.




The group's lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and bass player Geezer Butler had seen the film, and decided to write a song with that title. When it became clear that the band needed a new moniker, they named themselves after this song.




The name change coincided with a new sound and image for the group. They had been playing blues (mostly covers), but started writing more original material and found a darker, heavier sound that defined them throughout their Hall of Fame career. Eschewing anything resembling R&B or psychedelia, they found a fan base hungry for something fiendish and new. Critics derided the band, but they quickly became one of the most popular and enduring acts of their time.




 "While rehearsing new material, the band formerly known as Earth experienced a supernatural experience. Geezer and Tony were playing new riffs for Ozzy and Bill when, much to everyone's surprise, they both strummed the same notes at the same tempo - although neither had ever before heard the other one play the piece! Convinced that this was an omen, Geezer christened the song and the group Black Sabbath (after the movie)."




This was the first song on the first Black Sabbath album. The album cost $1200 to make and took about eight hours to record.



Thanks to the "Black Sabbath" moniker, many fans associated the band with Satanism, an image they played up throughout their career This song, however, expresses a healthy fear of the devil.



Tony Iommi on "Black Sabbath": "We knew we had something; you could feel it, the hairs stood up on your arms, it just felt so different. We didn't know what it was, but we liked it." "Everybody started putting bits to it and afterwards we thought it was amazing. Really strange, but good. We were all shocked, but we knew that we had something there."



During a July 2001 interview with Geezer Butler, Guitar World magazine explained that "having borrowed a 16th century tome of black magic from Osbourne one afternoon, Butler awoke that night to find a black shape staring balefully at him from the foot of his bed. After a few frightening moments, the figure slowly vanished into thin air." Geezer continued to describe how he "told Ozzy about it. It stuck in his mind, and when we started playing 'Black Sabbath', he just came out with those lyrics. It had to come out, and it eventually did in that song - and then there was only one possible name for the band, really!"


In 2002, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Phil Collins, and Pino Palladino of The Who played Paranoid at Buckingham Palace in celebration of the Queen's fiftieth year on the throne. The young princes Harry and William asked Iommi why the group hadn't played "Black Sabbath."



Former Black Sabbath manager Patrick Meehan bought a race horse and named it Black Sabbath.



Guitarist Tony Iommi was briefly hired as Jethro Tull's guitarist in 1968, but shortly returned to Earth because in Tull he was treated more like an employee than a bandmate. However, Iommi did learn from Jethro Tull's regimented practice sessions and upon his return to Earth, "Black Sabbath" was one of the first songs to result from their new early-morning (well, okay, 9am) practice sessions.


Sound effects of bells and thunder were added to the beginning of the song after the album's producer Rodger Bain got some sound effect tapes and suggested they add them. The band thought it was a great idea.



Geezer Butler recalled to Uncut magazine: "The first time we played 'Black Sabbath' was in this tiny pub in Lichfield near Birmingham. The whole pub went mental."



The band Coven had a different song called "Black Sabbath" on their 1969 debut album. That band really was into the occult; the album closes with a black mass. Furthermore, Coven's guitarist was named Oz Osbourne (Ozzy's real first name is John).


Coven left their record label, Mercury, that year, and in 1970 a Mercury subsidiary signed Black Sabbath. Coven lead singer Jinx Dawson claimed that the label was looking for a male band to replace them, copying many of their occult themes, but without the verisimilitude.


At one point Tony Iommi played an upside down Gibson SG. Someone saw him doing it and said "I have a [right-handed] friend who plays a left-handed one upside down"! That guy and Tony swapped guitars, and both were happy


In April 1989, while the band was touring in support of Headless Cross, a gig in Mexico was shut down and crew members were arrested on arrival. The Catholic Church in Mexico had protested the Sabbath show, and the mayor banned the event last-minute.



Vocalist Ronnie James Dio died of metastasized stomach cancer in 2010



Black Sabbath's debut album in 1970 began with the sound effects of a church bell and thunder. Forty-three years later, in 2013, their final album ended with the same sound of a church bell and thunder.



NIB.


In this song, Satan falls in love with a human woman and tries to seduce her. He turns out to be very charming and the early lyrics are quite poetic.


 
The title refers to drummer Bill Ward's beard. The band called him "Nibby" because they thought it looked like the nib on the end of a pen (Ozzy came up with the nickname when he on acid and thought Geezer Butler was turning into a fountain pen). Says Butler: Originally it was Nib, which was Bill's beard. When I wrote N.I.B., I couldn't think of a title for the song, so I just called it Nib, after Bill's beard. To make it more intriguing I put punctuation marks in there to make it N.I.B. By the time it got to America, they translated it to Nativity In Black.


 
Many fans thought the title stood for "Nativity In Black" or "Name In Blood."


 
The bass intro is called "Bassically." It is listed as a separate song on US versions of the album.


 
"Nativity In Black" is the name of two Black Sabbath tribute albums released in 1994 and 2000. Groups contributing to the albums include Megadeth, Godsmack, Biohazzard, and Faith No More.


 

The first Nativity In Black album, released in 1994, contains a cover of this by Ugly Kid Joe. The second, from 2000, contains a version from Primus with Ozzy Osbourne.




The Wizard

Rumour had it that this song about an upbeat sorcerer was an ode to the band's drug dealer - when The Wizard walks by everyone is happy. Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi cleared things up when he explained that Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler were wandering around stoned and saw some guy leaping around being silly outside of a club. He looked like some kind of elf to them. Thus the song "The Wizard" was born.


 
This is the second song on the first Black Sabbath album. The album took about eight hours to record and cost $1200 to make.


 
This was used as the B-side to the first Sabbath single, "Paranoid" which was released ahead of their second album.


 
Ozzy Osbourne played the harmonica part.



Like "Iron Man," the title character of this song became a sort of character or appellation for lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy became known as "The Wizard" shortly after the release of Blizzard of Ozz (the title a takeoff on "Wizard of Oz"). A 1999 compilation album of modern artists covering Ozzy classics was called Land of the Wizard: A Tribute to Ozzy Osbourne.



This was included on the live album Ozzfest: 2001 The Second Millennium. The album contains songs from the bands on the 2001 Ozzfest tour. This is the only Black Sabbath song included.



 

PatReilly wrote:

. Can you recall people carrying albums casually under their arms to enhance their image?

.

It was about'72 before I started getting into/buying music.







But I recall this had the desired effect!

arabchanter wrote:

PatReilly wrote:

. Can you recall people carrying albums casually under their arms to enhance their image?

.

It was about'72 before I started getting into/buying music.







But I recall this had the desired effect!

I mind folk going around saying that was a man on the cover of the first Roxy album! That persisted on with another Roxy album cover later in time, cannae recall which. Put us off our strokes.

Anyway, the internet would have been great in those days, as I see that lassie on the cover is actually married to Chris Jagger (Mick's brother). She is Kari-Anne Muller, and was also the cover girl for a later Mott the Hoople album.

Last edited by PatReilly (05/2/2018 12:31 pm)

DAY 180.
The Doors........................................Morrison Hotel   (1970)









Morrison Hotel was a fine wee album, if you have heard any Doors tracks before you kinda know what your gonna get, although Jim Morrison or Mr Mojo Risin the anagram of his name that he loved thought he was a gifted poet I believe he was just a bit too fond of the old "Peyote"

Back to the album, I do like the Doors and found this album to be very good indeed and nothing on here gave me any reason to change my mind, opening up with Roadhouse Blues which has a great bass line going through it (seemingly when on tour they never had a bass player all the time, Ray Manzarek used to play the bass line with his left hand, on a Fender Rhodes Piano Bass) and some good moothy playin' tae.


I also liked Waiting For The Sun, Peace Frog and Maggie McGill, but my favourite track on the album was Land Ho! for reasons I can't properly explain.


All in all a very good album, Morrison  doing his usual lurching from soulful to doleful, but wouldn't want it any other way, also a big up for Ray Manzarek who was seemingly the glue that kept them together, as in previous posts financial constraints have to be applied, and as I've already bought the album The Doors which, If I had to choose between these two would be my choice , this one shan't be getting added to my collection.


Bits &Bobs;


Already posted some bits in post #342 (if interested)




Roadhouse Blues

When Jim Morrison got drunk, he liked to sing blues numbers at The Doors jam sessions. This in one of the songs he came up with at one of those inebriated sessions.


 
If there was an actual roadhouse that inspired this song, it was probably the Topanga Corral, a windowless nightclub in the counterculture enclave of the Topanga Canyon, where Jim Morrison lived. To get to the venue you had to take Topanga Canyon Boulevard, which is full of twists and turns - you really did need to "keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel."




The Corral, where Little Feat and Canned Heat played and Linda Ronstadt was often spotted in the audience, burned down in 1986.




There was a cabin behind the Topanga Corral that many sources say Morrison bought for his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. This could be what provided the line, "In back of the Roadhouse they got some bungalows."


 

John Sebastian from the Lovin' Spoonful played harmonica. He is identified on the album as "G. Puglese" because he was afraid to be identified with The Doors in light of Morrison's arrest at a concert in Miami when he was accused of exposing himself to the crowd. Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and sentenced to six months in jail, but he died while the case was being appealed. In 2010, Florida governor Charlie Crist granted Morrison a pardon, clearing him of the charges.


 
Guitar great Lonnie Mack played bass. The Doors usually did not use a bass player.


 
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger joined Creed on stage at Woodstock '99, where they performed this. It is on the Woodstock '99 CD.


 
This is the first song on Morrison Hotel. The album was a return The Doors' earlier style. On their previous album, The Soft Parade, they used a lot of strings and horns. Morrison didn't do much on that album because he was drunk for most of it and had nothing to do while all the instrumentation was being worked out. Before The Doors had a record deal, they played many Blues songs in their long club shows.


   
This was released as the B-side of "You Make Me Real."


 
The Doors occasionally recorded old blues songs, but even though this sounds like it could have been one of them, the wrote it themselves.


 
This has been called "the ultimate bar song," and it continues to be played by bar bands everywhere.


 
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger recalled to the NME July 17, 2010 how the album title came about: "Ray (Manzarek, keyboards) had been driving around downtown LA, and he saw this place called Morrison Hotel. So we decided to go down and shoot some photos there, but the guy who owned the hotel wouldn't let us inside it. I guess they thought we were hippies. There were a lot of drunks and bums hanging around that area. Anyway, we snuck in there real quick when he wasn't looking and got the shot that became the cover of Morrison Hotel."



Peace Frog



Doors guitarist Robby Krieger came up with the guitar riff. The lyrics were based on two of Jim Morrison's poems, one called "Abortion Stories," which is where the bloody images came from.
This song was written in the studio. After Krieger got the guitar riff, Jim Morrison came up with the lines, "She came, she came, she came, just about the break of day." Their producer, Paul Rothchild, wanted to fill out the lyric, so he and Morrison when through Jim's notebooks and found the poems to create the lyrics.


 
The lyrics about the Indians refer to an auto accident involving a group of Indians that Morrison's family came across on the highway. Morrison, who was a child at the time, felt that the ghosts of the Indians took up residence in his soul. This scene is portrayed at the beginning of Oliver Stone's movie, The Doors.


 

The lyric, "Blood in the streets of the town of Chicago" refers to the 1968 democratic convention, where police in riot gear brutally beat protesters.


 

The lyric, "Blood in the streets of the town of New Haven" refers to Morrison's arrest in New Haven in 1967. From the stage, the enraged singer explained that he was with a girl before the show, and, "We started talking and we wanted some privacy and so went into this little show room. We weren't doing anything. You know, just standing there talking, and then this little man in a little blue suit and a little blue cap came in there. He said 'Whatcha doin' there?' 'Nothin'.' But he didn't go away, he stood there and then he reached round behind him and brought out this little black can of something. It looked like shaving cream. And then he sprayed it in my eyes. I was blinded for about 30 minutes."




At this point, three police officers came onstage and arrested Morrison for breach of the peace, giving an indecent and immoral exhibition and resisting arrest. He managed to strike a crucifixion pose before he was taken away, and some audience members fought with cops.



Why "The Lizard King"?



Jim Morrison was known as 'The Lizard King' due to his obsession with lizards. After years of drinking and heavy drug used he had developed the belief that he was able to control lizards with the power of his mind - that he had indeed become their 'King'. He would constantly mention this ability to friends, but was always unable to provide proof. During a party in Los Angeles in 1967 he had a confrontation with singer Janis Joplin in which, according to witnesses, he threatened to "unleash my army of tiny beasts" upon her. She then reportedly threw a bottle at his face,and he is said to have spent an hour in the garden attempting to summon his lizard army with a form of Native American dance called the 'Paqawatusi' - to little success. Frustrated by his inability to command the creatures, he moved to Paris in 1971 after someone told him there were no lizards in France and he dies soon afterwards as a broken man.

 

Last edited by arabchanter (06/2/2018 11:19 pm)

Never was a big Doors fan, but enjoyed recalling some stuff on that album.

arabchanter wrote:

   
This song ('We've Only Just Begun') is very popular at weddings, as the lyrics describe a couple starting a new life together and living in harmony: "Talking it over, just the two of us, working together day by day."

 

Plenty folk should have had The Carpenters' song 'Goodbye to Love' at their wedding! One of my pals wanted 'To All The Girls I've Loved' (Willie Nelson, Julio Inglesias).

But I'm making light of great talent.

Always feel very sad when I think of Karen Carpenter, and her illness and death.

One of the worst mental illnesses, with the highest death rate as it is so difficult to understand and treat. I've spoken to medics about anorexia, and something they always emphasise is telling. There is little research, and therefore less breakthroughs or chances of success regarding the more serious aspects of the illness, as there is no glamour in working in that field.

DAY 182.
Stephen Stills....................Stephen Stills   (1970)






This album dispels the myth that it was always better back in the day, I liked this type of music in the mid seventies, but now? not so much.


I wouldn't say I hated it now , because their are a few tunes on the album, I think stand the test of time, but are well outnumbered by the mediocre meh that consists of the rest of the album. A couple of good tracks "Love The One You're With," "Do For Others" and "Old Times Good Times" were the stand outs for me


Can't say I was overly impressed with this album, I had Deja Vu back in the day and found that far more thought provoking, and generally top drawer.

this won't be getting added, no 'really my type o' music, but many didn't concur 



Bits & Bobs to follow tomorrow


Stephen Stills and The Giraffe of Unrequited Love






It’s not just any giraffe. It’s a giraffe with a purpose.
It’s the giraffe of unrequited love.When Stephen Stills’ first solo album was released in 1970, buyers may have looked at the enigmatic stuffed giraffe on the cover and thought “How cute” or figured Stills was trying to be funny. Very few at the time- not even photographer Henry Diltz– knew the real reason Stills insisted the stuffed animal be in every picture taken that snowy Colorado morning.



 It all went back to the previous summer. Stills had fallen hard for singer Rita Coolidge while playing on sessions for her first album. The only problem was, his Crosby, Stills, and Nash bandmate Graham Nash had a thing for Coolidge also. Nash invited her to accompany him to one of CSN’s shows, but Stills tried to outwit Nash by telling Coolidge that Nash couldn’t take her to the show after all – but he’d be happy to instead. They embarked on a relationship, inspiring Stills’ songs “Sit Yourself Down and “Cherokee” (Coolidge was part Cherokee). Sometime during this period, she apparently bought the giraffe for him, or else they bought it together – accounts vary. Nash, meanwhile, was busy writing “Better Days”, which expressed his view that Coolidge would be better off  with him: “Though you’re where you want to be / You’re not where you belong”. In short time, she realized she’d rather be with Nash.




They went to Stills to break the news. He reportedly spit at Nash in anger and refused to talk to him anymore.  The band, which had already been falling apart due to egos, money and drugs, fractured. In a bit of irony, Stills sang on his soon-to-be-released song “To A Flame” (which may or may not be about Coolidge), “Lucky for me I’m not a jealous man…” Crosby, a little myopically, blamed the band break-up on her in his song “Cowboy Movie” (she’s the “Indian girl”).




 Stills, still in love with Coolidge, hopped on a lear jet to a cabin in Colorado with his wounded pride, photographer friend Diltz, his personal assistant Dan Campbell, and Fuzzy. No, not Fuzzy the giraffe (though the giraffe was on the plane too), but bass player Fuzzy Samuels.




 With his first solo album mostly recorded, a fresh September Rocky Mountain snowfall gave him the idea for the album’s cover photo. He and Diltz went outside the cabin, but after a couple of shots, Stills ran back in and grabbed the giraffe. He wouldn’t tell Diltz why, but he insisted it be in every picture. “That stupid giraffe!”, Diltz would subsequently exclaim, “Later that year he picked this photo out for the cover of his first solo album. I think that giraffe was a secret message to one of his girlfriends that he had broken up with. Maybe he wanted her to know he was still thinking about her, but he never said.”




Found this on a review, and it kinda sums up what I hate about some of these stars, a bit of humility wouldn't go amiss sometimes.


"When my friend Jeff put on the CS&N show in Grass Valley, it gave me my first experience with a poor attitude and the huge egos in a rock entourage.  Although there was plenty of good homemade food of all varieties available on the grounds, Mr. Stills [his hair already thinning] said he wanted some chili and he refused to go onstage until he got some chili.  Jeff had to take his best man off the site and send him into town to find a restaurant that made chili.  When he returned, and “Mr.” Stills was presented with his chili, he took one bite and pushed it away.  It's called a ‘mind fuck’ and done just for sport, like having NO red M&M’s in the bowl.  I’ve run into it in the R&R game several times since, but never with the spirit of meanness found here.  Jeff has always been too sincere to call the bluff.  So hoops are jumped to fill the request of fragile, inflated egos".

















 

Last edited by arabchanter (08/2/2018 8:37 am)

Love 'Morrison Hotel'. It's The Doors best album.

The Carpenters album is very good too. Karen Carpenter was a good singer with a very harmonious voice.

DAY 183.
John Lennon..................................John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band    (1970)









 
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is generally considered one of John Lennon's finest solo albums, documenting with honesty and artistic integrity his emotional and mental state at that point in his career.



Looking forward to this, have never listened to the whole album before, but just listened to the first track "Mother" and found it very painful, in a sad and emotional kinda way..


Listening to Lennon singing this you have to feel for him, he seems to be going through a lot of pain, anguish and remorse, and takes you on a journey to someplace you maybe thought you had dealt with.


This is why I love music so much, it make you happy, sad, angry,thoughtful and sometimes just makes you go F'kn mental all in the space of a few tracks,

Music truly is the food of life, well for me at least  
 

DAY 184.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, And Young............................................Deja Vu    (1970)








The album took nearly 800 hours to record, Crosby's girlfriend died in a car accident and he took solace in heroin, cocaine and booze, during the sessions the four musicians squabbled, the moody Young was often absent, and Nash was forced to play peacemaker.


Somehow they created a masterpiece, one that encapsulates the spirit of American West Coast culture in the early seventies.



Will have to do this and Lennon tonight, youngest left for school skiing trip at half past f'kn dafto'clock this morning, got a note from her last night, asking if I could download 240 tracks and then put them on her i phone, so never had a chance to listen to yesterdays album,


 

DAY 184.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, And Young............................................Deja Vu    (1970)











Deja vu is an album I bought in the '70s,  when considering this album yesterday afternoon, I couldn't help thinking, it was a classic album, but what would it sound like forty odd years later?  How would it age?


Well, for this listener it aged just fine, I'll be honest I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it now, but for me it's sell by date hasn't expired and still has plenty of shelf life left. "Carry On" set the ball rollin' followed by "Teach Your Children" which has always been a favourite song of mine, "just look at them and sigh, and know they love you" is a parents dream, but as any parent will tell you that line sometimes sounds a bit to inspirational. "Helpless" is also a beautiful song (reminds me of Knockin' On Heavens Door, or should I say that Knockin' On Heavens Door reminds me of Helpless)

This album for me was like finding an old United top in the loft, and after forty odd years amazingly still fits perfectly, and if my old man hasn't got up in his loft, I will buy this one but later rather than sooner.


Bits & Pieces;


CSN was formed from what was left of three prominent 1960s groups: The Byrds (David Crosby), Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills) and The Hollies (Graham Nash). After the release of the band's first album in 1969, another Buffalo Springfield alum, Neil Young, joined the band.


 
Their first greatest hits collection featured artwork by Joni Mitchell, whose first album was produced by Crosby.


 
They performed at both the original and the second Woodstock. Their performance at the original Woodstock was only their third show together. They had a few more under their belts the second time around.


 
Jimi Hendrix taught Stills how to play lead guitar.


 
They are the only group to top the charts with three consecutive LPs where one was a studio album (Deja Vu), one was a live album (4 Way Street), and one was a greatest hits album (So Far).


 
Stills got into a fistfight with an audience member at a festival in Big Sur, California that was being filmed as a showcase for good vibes.


 
In the group's various configurations and as solo artists they have collectively released nearly 100 albums.


 

Each band member has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Crosby with The Byrds, Stills with Buffalo Springfield, Nash with The Hollies, and Young as a solo artist.


 
The group was somewhat unique in that each of the members were recording solo albums at the height of their success as a group. Other configurations included Crosby Nash (they made eight albums together) and the Stills-Young Band, which made one album in 1976.


 
The group was successful from the start, beginning with their first album and continuing through the early 1970s. CSNY was one of the few groups selling as many albums as the Beatles.


 
Young left the group in 1976, returning long enough to record an album in 1988 after Crosby finished a jail term on drug and weapons charges, fulfilling a promise Young had made to record with CSN if Crosby could beat his drug addiction.


 
Stephen Stills underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer on January 3, 2008, which was his 63rd birthday.


 
Graham Nash told The Guardian in a 2015 interview that it was a very difficult decision to leave his former group the Hollies. He said: "They were my friends for many, many years, but when I heard myself singing with David and Stephen that first time in Joni's [Mitchell] living room, my life changed dramatically. I needed to sing those songs."


 
Nash is both a keen photographer and collector of photographs. When he sold his 2,000-print collection through Sotheby's in 1990, it set an auction record for the highest-grossing sale of a single private collection of photography.



Teach Your Children


Graham Nash wrote this song. The lyrics deal with the often difficult relationship he had with his father, who spent time in prison.


 
Jerry Garcia performs the pedal steel guitar part of this track. He had been playing steel guitar for only a short period of time. Garcia played on this album in exchange for harmony lessons for the Grateful Dead, who were at the time recording their acoustic albums Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.


 
Graham Nash (from the liner notes of their 1991 boxed set): "The idea is that you write something so personal that every single person on the planet can relate to it. Once it's there on vinyl it unfolds, outwards, so that it applies to almost any situation. 'Teach' started out as a slightly funky English folk song but Stephen (Stills) put a country beat to it and turned it into a hit record."


 
Deja Vu was the first album the band recorded with Neil Young, but Young did not play on this.


 
In Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, Graham Nash is quoted as saying, "When I wrote 'Teach Your Children' and 'Our House,' we didn't know what we were doing. 'This sounds pretty fun, we can sing this, let's do it!' And then all of a sudden people are singing it back to me forty years later."


  
Shortly after writing this, Nash visited an art gallery and saw two photographs that crystallized the meaning of the song: Diane Arbus' "Child With Toy Hand Gun In Central Park" and Arnold Newman's portrait of German industrialist Alfried Krupp The singer told the news website Truthdig: "I put the 'Hand Grenade' photograph next to a picture of Krupp, who was the German arms magnate whose company was probably responsible for millions of deaths. It was an eerie photograph, a portrait, and the lighting is weird and his eyes are dark - a great image. And looking at them together I began to realize that what I'd just written ['Teach Your Children'] was actually true, that if we don't start teaching our children a better way of dealing with each other we're fucked and humanity itself is in great danger."




Our House



Graham Nash wrote this sentimental tune about his cohabitation with Joni Mitchell in a cottage in LA's Laurel Canyon around 1969. Mitchell and Nash were a romantic couple during the period in which Joni wrote the songs for Ladies Of The Canyon which, like Deja Vu, was released in 1970.


 
Biographer Dave Zimmer shared what Graham Nash told him about the song in the 2007 CSNY Historian's interview: "He once told me: 'The time that Joni and I were living together was really interesting, because I had left my band [The Hollies] successfully, I had left my country [England] successfully, I had been accepted here [Los Angeles, California], and I was feeling great. And Joni was feeling great, too; she had started to realize who she was and the fantastic work she was doing. She was painting and designing her second album cover, doing that self-portrait. And I remember being totally in awe of her. She'd go and make some supper and come down and we'd be eating, then she'd all of a sudden space out, go to the piano ... to see her sit down and write "Rainy Night House" and all those other things was just mind blowing.'"


 
According to Graham Nash's biography Wild Tales, a famous line in this song had a very specific inspiration. He and Joni Mitchell went to an antiques store and she picked out a vase. When they got home, Nash said, "I'll light the fire while you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today." He stopped dead in his tracks and went immediately to the piano.



Woodstock


This song is about the famous music festival in 1969. Mitchell was scheduled to perform at the festival, but backed out on the advice of her manager David Geffen, who was concerned that she would miss a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young did appear, playing an acoustic set followed by an electric set. They took the stage around 3 a.m. Monday morning - the festival was scheduled to end at midnight, but it ran long, culminating with a legendary Jimi Hendrix set that most people didn't stay to see.





That Tuesday, Mitchell, David Crosby and Stephen Stills all appeared on The Dick Cavett Show. Crosby has said that he and Stills were talking about the festival, and Mitchell wrote the song based on their experience there. Mitchell, however, claimed that she wrote the song before the band returned.



 
Joni Mitchell watched coverage of the Woodstock festival from a New York City hotel room. She had given up religion long ago, but found herself going through a "born-again Christian trip" when she wrote this song. Said Mitchell: "Suddenly, as performers, we were in the position of having so many people look to us for leadership, and for some unknown reason, I took it seriously and decided I needed a guide and leaned on God. So I was a little 'God mad' at the time, for lack of a better term, and I had been saying to myself, 'Where are the modern miracles?' Woodstock, for some reason, impressed me as being a modern miracle, like a modern-day fishes-and-loaves story. For a herd of people that large to cooperate so well, it was pretty remarkable and there was tremendous optimism. So I wrote the song 'Woodstock' out of these feelings."



 
Joni Mitchell released this the same year on Ladies of the Canyon. It was also the B-side to her song "Big Yellow Taxi." Her version is much more basic than the CSN&Y release.



 
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's performance at Woodstock was only their second show together. Before forming the band, Crosby had been a member of The Byrds, Nash was with The Hollies, Stills and Young were members of Buffalo Springfield. Neil Young played with the group for only part of the set.



 
It may seem odd that the most famous song about Woodstock came from someone who wasn't there, but Mitchell had a different perspective. "I was one of the many who were thwarted," she said on the CBC program The National. "That was the place every kid wanted to be. I got to the airport with CSN and our agent, David Geffen, and our manager, Elliott, on a Sunday night. It was a catastrophe. I had to do The Dick Cavett Show the following day, and it was Geffen who decided we can't get Joni out in time. So he took me back to his suite where he lived, and we watched it on TV. I was the deprived kid who couldn't go, so I wrote it from the point of view of a kid going. If I had been there in the back room with all the egomaniacal crap that goes on backstage, I would not have had that perspective."



 
Without Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash returned to play Woodstock '94. Other acts that played both festivals include Joe Cocker, The Band, and Santana.



 
Neil Young is not seen in the Woodstock movie even though he was there for part of the set. He strongly disagreed with the idea of the movie, so he declined to appear in it. If he were to play any songs in the movie, he'd have to be cropped out of frame.



 
The opening lyrics are a reference to the book of Matthew in which it says, "Blessed are those who try to make peace for they will be called children of God."


 
In the UK the best known version is the more country-rock flavored recording by Matthews' Southern Comfort, which topped the British singles and peaked at #23 in the US. Ian Matthews had been the lead singer with Fairport Convention, leaving in 1969 to form Matthews' Southern Comfort. He recalled in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner & Spencer Leigh: "I had bought Joni Mitchell's album and we had to do four songs on a BBC lunchtime show. We worked up an arrangement for 'Woodstock' and the response was so good that we put it out as a single. Crosby, Stills & Nash's record had just come out and so we waited to see what happened to that first." In 1978 Matthews had a #13 hit in the US as a solo artist with "Shake It."


 
Joni Mitchell's no-show at Woodstock was sometimes reported as being caused by "transportation problems." A persistent rumor was that James Taylor was supposed to give her a lift up the New York Thruway from her hotel in New York City, but Taylor was in a bad motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard, breaking both arms and keeping him out from behind the wheel and away from the guitar for months. That was it for Joni's trip to Woodstock.


4 + 20



This song was written and sung by Stephen Stills. It tells the sad story of a man who is born into a poor family and finds himself alone in his old age, wishing for death to come. In the CSN boxed set, Stills explained: "It's about an 84-year-old poverty stricken man who started and finished with nothing."


 
Running 2:10, the only instrumentation on this track is Stills' acoustic guitar. He recorded the song in one take and planned to use it on his upcoming debut solo album, but when his bandmates heard it, they implored him to use it on the CSN&Y Déjà Vu album. He recorded the track in one take and planned to have David Crosby and Graham Nash sing harmony parts, but they refused. "They told me they wouldn't touch it," said Stills. "So it always stood alone."



 
The man in this song is 84 years old, but Stills sings that he was born "Four and twenty years ago." Logically, this would mean that he's 24 years old, but there is a bit of poetic license here, as "Sixty-four and twenty years ago" doesn't fit the meter. "Four and Twenty" is a phrase popularized in the children's song "Sing a Song of Sixpence," where four-and-twenty blackbirds are baked in a pie





"4:20" is also associated with marijuana but that doesn't apply here. Another close cousin is "four score and seven years ago," the first line of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

DAY 185
Black Sabbath..............................Paranoid   (1970)







Black Sabbath’s second album topped the UK Charts, containing the hit songs “Paranoid”, “War Pigs” and “Iron Man”. It is considered a classic and is one of the most influential albums in heavy metal history.