Just a wee bit I found about Jim Kelly, a great Dundonian guitarist


  



Known affectionately by his Dundee mates as "The Welly", Jim Kelly started gigging locally in the mid 60's.




 One of the groups he was in during this time was The Honours.


 He then left Dundee around 1967 to join "The Luvvers", Lulu's backing band. After a year or so he joined "The Honeybus" who were quite a major chart band, and recorded a couple of albums with them. In 1969 he also released a solo single called "Mary, Mary". He came back to Dundee in 1970 and had more success with rock outfit "The Sleaz Band", gigging & recording. Around 1973 he teamed up with local band "Hunters Key", and he stayed with them for a few years.He was also known for his great sense of humour, but his health eventually gave way and he died in the mid 90's.


 Here below is a wee tribute vid showcasing the Welly with The Honeybus on a track called "Girl Of Independent Means". The guitar riff intro sounds very similar to David Bowie's 1972 hit "Jean Genie", who coincidentally, was also on the same "Deram" label when this was recorded in 1968..!!

Day 207.
Sly And The Family Stone.................................There's A Riot Goin' On    (1971)






Just finished listening to this one, and have to say I quite enjoyed it which came as a big surprise as I remember his last offering in this book.


The tracks varied from the good to to the god damned awful, the first three tracks, "Luv N' Haight" "Just Like a Baby" and "Poet" all made for a solid start, then along came "Family Affair" to take it up another notch, then all to be undone, and sent crashing down by the mammoth "Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle''  08:45, the first 2 or 3 minutes were passable, but then 6 minutes at least of mundane chantin aboot "timber" sometimes you've just got to "shack the hade"


"There's a Riot Goin' On" the title track is 4 seconds of silence (will try and find out what that's about) the rest of the tracks were also passable, and a special shout out for "Spaced Cowboy" I'm sure he was out of his box, yodeling away like a madman, but I loved every minute of it (my favourite track) then we come to the closing track 07:14 long, deffo could have cut that in half, which would have made it a bit more appealing to this listener.


All in all, the two long tracks put my right off this album, so it wont be getting added to my collection, BUT,  I'm going to download this album apart from the offending tracks, as I feel I would enjoy listening to this in the background as I decorate or carry out the many orders from "her who must be obeyed"
Nae wonder "a man tak's a drink"


Bits & Bobs;

Already wrote a bit about them in post #638 (if interested)




"Luv N' Haight"

Sly Stone recorded most of this album lying in bed He had his recording equipment set up in his bedroom, so he could actually record music while in bed.

 Sly only wanted to get high and feel good. So he started off the album with a song about just that.Throughout the entire song, almost the only thing Sly repeats is:“I feel so good inside myself, don’t want to move. Feel so good inside myself, don’t need to move.” And Sly was right. He didn’t want to move, so he had recording equipment set up so he didn’t need to move.





"Poet"

Sly Stone’s poetry has been so influential that it’s been sampled on over 800 songs

 Many early rap producers used this album as the foundation for hiphop.  Even before that, this album is credited as inventing funk music, which as a whole is largely an inspiration for hiphop


 Funk music pioneer, Geroge Clintion, openly speaks on Sly Stone being his musical influence to starting seminal funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic.

 With this album, Sly Stone opened the doors to musical sounds that created both funk music and hiphop.



"Family Affair"
 This was a #1 hit single in 1971, recorded by Sly Stone without the band, except for his sister Rose on backing vocals. Billy Preston played keys. Sly recorded it in his home studio in BelAir and mastered it at the Record Plant in LA.

 This was the first #1 to use a programmed rhythm machine.


 The song was cosidered to be about his family, the band and the Black Panthers.

"Well, they may be trying to tear me apart; I don’t feel it. Song’s not about that. Song’s about a family affair, whether it’s a result of genetic processes or a situation in the environment."
Per Sly



"There's A Riot Goin' On"


In 1997 Sly Stone said that the “There’s a Riot Goin' On” track had no running time simply because “I felt there should be no riots.”



"Spaced Cowboy"


 Spaced Cowboy is another drug track on the album which was written and recorded during sly’s peak creativity and the beginning of his heavy drug use.

 This song starts out in a drug euphoria, but turns dark.



 
 

I'd have been booking in at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland long before now rather than suffer all this garbage.

Oh aye, and I prefer Marvin Gaye to Sly atFS, but both are ok albums. I reckon these are mood albums, you'll enjoy them in a certain mood, often involving alcohol.

Day 208.
Marvin Gaye.........................What's Going On    (1971)







"Greatest album of all time" get aff the glue Smokey!

I think Mr Reilly got it right, it's probably a mood album that tends to sound better wi' a bucket of drink, but as I'm no in the mood, and no' had nearly enough drink, this album didn't really appeal to me.


Maybe if I was a bit older in '71 it would mean a bit more to me, but I just found it too Godly and woe is me to be enjoyable, always liked "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) but "What's Going On" and the rest were for me just a bit of rabble going on.


This album wont be going in my collection.........................Greatest album ever 



Bits & Bobs;


One of Motown Records' most successful artists, Gaye was married to Anna Gordy, who was the sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy. The singer met Anna in 1960 after the disbandment of the Doo-Wop group Harvey and the Moonglows led him to follow leader Harvey Fuqua to Detroit. He began working as a drummer for Anna Records, a short-lived label run by the Gordy sisters (Anna and Gwen) along with songwriter Billy Davis.




Although Anna was 17 years older than Gaye, the pair married in June of 1963, a month after the singer released his first top-10 single, "Pride and Joy."




The marriage ended in divorce, and Gaye named his 1976 album Here, My Dear after agreeing that royalties from the album would be used to pay alimony to Anna. Even though Gaye knew he would not see any money from the album, he still gave it his best effort.


 
Early in his career, Gaye was teamed with female Motown artists including Mary Wells and Kim Weston. It was his match with Terrell, however, that made magic. The duo recorded several hits together, often penned by the songwriting team Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, such as "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" and "Your Precious Love."




Ashford recalled the duo's chemistry in an interview with Tavis Smiley: "The two of them together, that blend, I mean, it was like ice cream and cookies or whatever you want to call it, you know, just a good blend."




Little did they know, their last concert performance together would be at a Homecoming celebration at the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia in 1967. Terrell collapsed onstage as Gaye rushed to catch her, a result of a brain tumor that would take her life three years later and leave Gaye devastated. According to John Pumilia's article "Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell: Perfect Together," Gaye recalled: "I think maybe what scared me the most was that I was so angered by the senselessness of it all. I had to accept that it was God's will, but it was difficult to understand at the time. I grieved for years, and the fact that deep down inside I hated performing with somewhat of a passion made it even easier for me to stop. After taking time off, I developed a real fear of performing and it was even more difficult to come back."


 
One of his last public performances was singing the US national anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star game. At the time, performers were expected to give a restrained and traditional performance when singing the national anthem, but Gaye delivered an emotional performance similar to other songs he would sing in concert. This caused some controversy, but the idea of personalizing the national anthem caught on, and singers often add personal touches to the song even today.


 
One day before the singer's 45th birthday, an argument between Marvin Jr. and Marvin Sr. escalated into violence. The reasons behind the confrontation are murky. Some claim it was the conclusion of a decades-long period of abuse that the singer endured from his father. Others say depressed Marvin Jr. used his father's rage as a way to commit suicide without actually having to pull the trigger himself. Regardless, on the night of April 1, 1984, Marvin Jr. was shot twice: once in the chest, once in the shoulder. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, but his heart had stopped beating and attempts to resuscitate him failed. His funeral took place three days later at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, with notable mourners including Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, and Berry Gordy.




According to David Ritz's Divided Soul: The Life Of Marvin Gaye, Marvin Sr. died without any recollection of shooting his son. After a six-year suspended sentence and a five-year probation period for voluntary manslaughter, he lived the rest of his life in nursing homes in Southern California. He died on October 10, 1998 at the age of 84.


 
Motown founder Berry Gordy often called Gaye, "The truest artist I've ever known." In a 1994 interview with Harvey Kubernik, he added, "Whatever he was going through in his life he put on records. So if you want to know Marvin just listen to one of his records."




Gordy should know. As Gaye's boss at Tamla/Motown, as his brother-in-law (through his sister, Anna Gordy) and as his friend, Gordy had a complex and sometimes tumultuous relationship with Gaye throughout the singer's entire career. He elaborated in a Wall Street Journal interview: "It never mattered what people said about us on the outside. People who wrote articles and books got everything wrong all the time. According to them, Marvin and I were supposed to be the biggest enemies, that we were fighting all the time and that I was doing this and that to him. But within our company and within us, it was different."


 
Motown founder Berry Gordy has called Marvin Gaye's 1971 protest album, What's Going On, "the most prestigious record" the label ever released. Gordy was not so optimistic when he first got wind of Gaye's project years earlier. He thought it was another one of the singer's crazy schemes, like when he wanted to become a boxer or a professional football player. The making of the What's Going On album has become the stuff of legend with Gordy as the villain trying to block its release and Gaye as the hero threatening to never record with Motown again unless he relented.




Gordy admits it took him awhile to accept the idea but claims the stories are false. He told the Wall Street Journal in 2011, "Once he told me he wanted to awaken the minds of mankind, and I could see in his eyes how serious he was, I had to let him do it." He later added. "I thought those records would ruin him. Instead, they made him an icon."


 
According to Ben Edmonds' biography Marvin Gaye: What's Going On and the Last Days of the Motown Sound, Gaye's method of relaxation during recording sessions was notorious at the record label. Not only did he enjoy smoking marijuana, which he was certain was about to be legalized, he spent time brainstorming ideas for pot ads. Songwriter Elgie Stover remembers one particular gem: "Try the Marvin Redeye brand, friends and neighbors. No sticks, no seeds, no stems. Just clean, smooth smoke. Hear that guy laughing? He just sampled Marvin Redeye's private blend."




Not everyone at Motown was so easy-going about Gaye's habit. Russ Terrana (recording/mixing engineer) remembers an incident involving Diana Ross just before the two were set to record their 1973 duets album, Diana & Marvin:



"Well, as you've probably heard, Marvin liked to smoke a joint when he sang. So he's out in the studio happily puffing away and Diana comes into the control room in a huff 'I'm pregnant and I can't be out there while he's smoking that marijuana bla bla bla.' Marvin is sitting out in the studio in a chair, cool as can be, taking a hit now and then. So Berry (Gordy) gets on the talkback – the room suddenly very quiet – and says 'Uh, Marvin, Diana's pregnant and doesn't want you to be smoking a joint.' Marvin stopped for a second, looked up and said, 'Then I can't sing.' For the rest of the album, they'd come in separately. There was not a single moment when they actually sang together."


 
Marvin Gaye always knew he was destined for greatness, but at 17 years old he wasn't just thinking about singing; he was thinking about flying. As his home life became increasingly volatile, Gaye decided to escape to the United States Air Force and enlist as a Basic Airman. The reality of service and authority didn't match his romanticized vision of soaring the skies. He realized all too quickly that he didn't like peeling potatoes and certainly didn't like taking orders.




"I needed to see the world. I thought that's what the Air Force would be, but the Air Force was prison," author David Ritz quotes Gaye in his biography, Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye. The singer remembered writing his superior officer a letter detailing everything that was wrong with the Air Force. That didn't go over well.




After just eight months of duty, Gaye was desperate to be sent home. He disobeyed every order he could in an attempt to be kicked out. Eventually, he faked mental illness to get out of service with an honorable discharge in 1957.


 
Marvin Gaye never played an organized sport in his life, but he was convinced he could be a football star. He told biographer David Ritz: "You see, I had this fantasy: I was in the Super Bowl, with millions of people watching me on TV all over the world, as I made a spectacular leaping catch and sprinted for the winning touchdown."




In 1970, Gaye enlisted the help of friends to help him train and bulk up for a tryout with the Detroit Lions. It helped that these friends were players on the team – Lem Barney and Mel Farr.




Barney told the LA Times: "There's no question that if he had started out at an early age like most of us, he could have been a fine ballplayer." He added, "Marvin had a lot of heart, a lot of will and stick-to-itiveness. He just didn't have the skills."




It wouldn't matter if he did, because he never got his tryout. Still a major music icon, Gaye was labeled a liability by Lions coach Joe Schmidt.




Barney and Farr can both be heard on Gaye's landmark protest song "What's Going On."


 
In 1974, Marvin Gaye was coming back into the spotlight in more ways than one. He was embarking on his first tour since the tragic death of his duet partner Tammi Terrell four years earlier. Elsewhere, the singer was making a different kind of debut in the pages of a novel.




Elaine Jesmer, a former press agent who was closely associated with Motown, penned Number One With A Bullet, a trashy novel about the seedy underbelly of the record industry. Its main character, Daniel Stone, bears a striking resemblance to Gaye. Stone is a troubled singer who marries the sister of his boss at Finest Records (sound familiar?). What unfolds is a story of greed, violence and depravity. The similarities didn't escape Gaye, or Motown.




After the book's publication, Jesmer was effectively black-balled from the music industry, but she wasn't surprised


.

In a 2010 interview with blogtalkradio's Stephanie Campbell, Jesmer claims that Gaye unwittingly contributed to the novel: "He would come and tell stories of something that had just happened and I would be so crazed by listening to this that I would go and write it into the book just as he said it had happened," she said.




Gaye gave his own side of the story in 1981 when Ebony magazine asked him how much of Jesmer's novel was fact and how much was fiction: "About 50-50. Elaine Jesmer pretended she was in love with me – or maybe she wasn't pretending – to extract information out of me so that she could write the book and, er, Daniel Stone [the hero] was supposed to be me. There was a lot of truth in it, but a lot of fiction also. Certainly I'm not an oralist. I'm a dominant sexual partner usually, but she made mention in the book of some sexual activity that is not my character. I'm not a whore; I'm promiscuous, yes, but very selective. That ought to make interesting reading!"


 
A Motown memorabilia collector from Detroit came across Marvin Gaye's passport from 1964 tucked inside an old record sleeve. He made the discovery after buying a collection of LPs and singles from the family of a deceased former Motown musician. During an appearance on the February 3, 2014 episode of PBS' Antiques Roadshow, the passport was valued at a minimum of $20,000 by the show's appraiser Laura Wooley.


 
Marvin Gaye's real last name was "Gay." However, he was a target of bullying in his young days as his father was a crossdresser. It was because of this, added with rumors of the singer's own homosexuality, that Marvin added an "e" to his last name when he became famous.


What’s Going On is an album bereft of sex; full of love but completely without lust. The love is spiritual, deep and available to everyone. In order to get himself into a pure headspace to sing, Gaye would seclude himself in a locked room and masturbate for hours. Free from sexual tension, he’d step to the microphone and let God flow through him and commit his voice to tape, knowing the words he sang were coming from a place of purity.


A bit of a Ravi Shanker then.

Edit to say I did like his earlier stuff , but this was to righteous/sanctimonious for me.

Last edited by arabchanter (06/3/2018 12:51 am)

 DAY 209.
Yes...........................The Yes Album   (1971)


 



Was never a great fan of prog-rock, and this album kinda confirms my feelings towards said genre,

This album for me anyway, had too many lengthy tracks, granted some had been split into sections, but that failed to alleviate the nauseating organ and somewhat bizarre lyrics, in my humbles, I always felt (rightly or wrongly) that most of these prog-rock bands were filled with public schoolboys and university types, (remember this was 1971, not easy for your normal Joe to get in) who just wanted to to try and show how clever they were, but I never got it!
(maybe it was that clever it went over my head, I can't rule out that possibility)


The only track that I would probably listen to without leaving the room would be the instrumental "Clap," I wont be buying this album, and I hope we don't get too much of this genre, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.


One thing I forgot to mention, I really loved the album covers that were designed and illustrated by Roger Dean, for me they always stood out in the record shops.




Bits & Bobs;




They got a lot of exposure opening for Cream at their farewell concert and by appearing on John Peel's BBC program Top Gear



 
From 1981-1982, they took a hiatus to work on solo projects. When they came back, Wakeman rejoined the band.


  
In 1989, Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe released an album under the name Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe. Due to legal issues, they weren't allowed to call themselves Yes.


 
Howe and Downes were both in the supergroup Asia.


 
Yes holds the record for the most performances at New York City's Madison Square Garden during the 1970s.


 
Founder member Peter Banks played with Yes for their first two albums, '1969's Yes and 1970's Time And The Word, but a disagreement about the direction of the band led to his dismissal before the release of the second LP. Banks was found dead in his London home on March 8, 2013 due to heart failure. He was reportedly discovered after failing to show up for a recording session.


 
The band's name came from their first guitarist Peter Banks because it was "Short and sweet."


 
Prior to Jon Anderson rejoining Yes for the recording of 90125, the other bandmembers Chris Squire, Alan White, Tony Kaye, and newcomer Trevor Rabin had formed as a new group and called themselves Cinema. This lineup is also known by Yes fans as Yes West, because their recordings were held in Los Angeles.


 
One of their first gigs was opening for Cream at their Farewell Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1968.


 
Rick Wakeman has left and rejoined Yes six times. He told Kerrang!: "Somebody once said Yes and myself were like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: couldn't live with each other, but couldn't live without each other. And I said, 'That's absolutely fine – as long as I'm Richard Burton.'"


 
In 2008, the group replaced Anderson, who was dealing with health issues, with Benoît David, a Canadian singer who was once part of a Yes tribute band. Two years later, Anderson teamed up with Rabin and Wakeman to form Anderson Rabin Wakeman (ARW), which later used the name Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman.




So ever since 2010, there have been two versions of the group, each with a claim to the name and lineage. They came together when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, but diverged again after the ceremony. The version of the group led by Howe and White use the name Yes, along with the logos.



Howe's solo acoustic tune, "Clap" (titled "The Clap" in original album pressings), was influenced by Chet Atkins and Mason Williams,' "Classical Gas" The piece was written to celebrate the birth of Howe's son Dylan on 4 August 1969.The version that appears on the album was recorded live at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 17 July 1970.



The Yes Album gave the band their first number one (albeit thanks at first to a dubious chart, taken hurriedly from the Oxford Street Virgin store because of a postal strike), and sold a million.


 

The Yes Album sounds very dated today, it was okay hearing it again in parts but while some music lasts the test of time, I feel that hasn't.

Trafalgar, fuck me, I preferred the disco stuff of later years from the Bee Gees, and that's stretching it. 
To misquote Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, 'Arabchanter, your sufferings are great, and it will be many years until they are over'.

DAY 210.
The Bee Gees............................Trafalgar    (1971)








Absolutely fuckin' brutal, overharmonised, overorchestrated and at some points overstretching their vocal limits.


Listening to that, was a very painful experience, if you haven't listened to it, please do yourself a favour, and give it the rubber ear, not one track came close to being good enough, to be classed as shite, this abomination will no' be coming near my house.



Bits & Bobs:

previously posted about this mob (if interested) also can't find any facts about Trafalgar, so this is it!

DAY 212.
Carole King.............................Tapestry   (1971)







Having already established herself in pop's pantheon during the 1960s as half of a legendary Brill Building songwriting partnership (with then husband Gerry Goffin,) Carole King dramatically reinvented herself as a solo star with this landmark issue.


Didn't get a chance to listen to "Who' Next" yesterday as oot the toon last night, but really looking forward to doing the double tonight, haven't heard "Who's Next" before, but looked at the tracklist sounds more than decent, and used to have "Tapestry" back in he day and haven't heard it in years.

DAY 211.
The Who.............................Who's Next   (1971)













Well there's an album and a half for you, this is (at the moment) my favourite Who album, reading reviews of this album I seen a lot of people saying, " an album that kicks off with "Baba O'Reily" and ends with "Wont Get Fooled Again" is enough to make it a classic album, but I found the other tracks in between had no cause to be embarrassed or not worthy, they for me, could be called upon to stand alone and give a very good account of themselves, without being overshadowed by their more commercial bedfellows.


If you haven't listened to this album, I would urge you to give it a listen, for the first time I actually liked Daltrey's vocals, and anyone who has looked at this music thread will know my phobia for long winded tracks, but honestly I didn't realise "Wont Get Fooled Again" went on for as long as it did.



Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed this one from start to finish, and will be adding it to my collection.


Just a wee add on, I found it a bit funny that the week we got a new Chairman, this album comes up,and the final verse of the album is;

[Outro)
YEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss  



Bits & Bobs;

Have done a couple of posts about the who already  (if interested)



About The Album Cover
“I was working with Pete Townshend on his Lifehouse project, which was an ambitious concept based on a futuristic era when people got their entertainment through being strapped into special suits,” recalls Ethan Russell, the American photographer who took the album’s iconic cover shot. “As far as I understand it, a lot of the songs on Who’s Next were originally intended for that record [Lifehouse]. Anyway, the band had virtually finished Who’s Next, but still didn’t have a clue about what to do about the cover.”
 It was at this point that fate smiled benevolently.


 “We were driving back through [County Durham] from a gig one night, doing about 110 miles per hour down the motorway – which freaked me out. Pete was driving, and he asked me whether I had any ideas for the sleeve. Then suddenly, we passed these three or four pillars on the landscape. They were gone in a flash, but I said to him that they might make an interesting backdrop for a photo shoot. That was it. Before I knew what had happened, Pete had swung the car back around a roundabout and was heading back to the spot, followed by three other vehicles carrying the rest of the band.

 Without any hesitation, the four Who members gathered around one of the mysterious objects, and Russell started shooting.

 “We did a lot of different poses, including some based on the 2001: A Space Odyssey idea of the apes gathering around the black obelisk. Then Pete started to piss on it, and I went with the flow, as it were. The others also tried to take Pete’s lead, but couldn’t actually do it. It was all a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
 They poured some rainwater on the pillar to achieve a similar effect.

 Russell admits that he didn’t exactly have his finger on the motor drive, and took only a few shots. But 24 hours later, one of his photos had been turned into the cover we know today.

 “The odd thing is that it was only later on that I found out what those pillars were used for: to keep waste in place. It was a dumping ground for rubbish."

 Russell is the only man to have worked on covers for the Brit ‘big three’: The Who, The Rolling Stones (Through The Past Darkly) and The Beatles (Let It Be).




"Baba O'Reily"



 The first part of the title comes from Meher Baba, who was Pete Townshend's spiritual guru. The second part comes from Terry Riley, an experimental, minimalist composer Townshend admired - many of the keyboard riffs and sound effects on Who's Next were a result of Riley's influence. According to the Who's Next liner notes, Townshend wrote it as his vision of what would happen if the spirit of Meher Baba was fed into a computer and transformed into music. The result would be Baba in the style of Terry Riley, or "Baba O'Riley."


 The title is not mentioned in the lyrics, so the song is often referred to as "Teenage Wasteland." The "Teenage Wasteland" section was a completely different song Townshend combined with his "Baba O'Riley" idea to form the song.


 

Pete Townshend spent a few weeks in his home studio putting together the part that sounds like a synthesizer on a Lowry organ. His goal: to create "a replication of the electronic music of the future."

When he took the tape of his recording to engineer Glyn Johns, he expected Johns to alter it, but Johns left it as is, insisting it was perfect.


 
While Townsend's keyboard playing is legendary and brilliant, it's not quite what it seems. Townshend played a Lowrey TBO-1 organ at his home studio. He tried to run it through an ARP synthesizer/sequencer, but couldn't get the sound he was looking for. Instead, he used the "marimba repeat" setting on his Lowrey to create the arpeggiated, complex repeating pattern.


 
This is the first song on Who's Next, the most successful album of The Who's career. Although this is one of the most popular Who songs, it was never released as a single in America or the UK. It was, however, the perfect song for the up-and-coming Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format that was picking up steam on FM radio. Always played in moderation, "Baba" became a Classic Rock staple and remains on many playlists.


 
When The Who perform this live, the processed organ is played from a recording, since it would be nearly impossible to replicate on an instrument. The guitar doesn't come in until 1:40, giving Pete Townshend some time to reflect on his work. "There is this moment of standing there just listening to this music and looking out to the audience and just thinking, 'I f--king did that. I wrote that," he told Rolling Stone. "I just hope that on my deathbed I don't embarrass myself by asking someone, 'Can you pass me my guitar? And will you run the backing tape of 'Baba O'Riley'? I just want to do it one more time."


 
This marked one of the first times a keyboard/synthesizer was used to form the rhythm of a rock song, rather than employing it as a lead instrument.


 
Regarding the phrase "Teenage Wasteland":

Lifehouse is set in a time where most of England is a polluted wasteland. Townshend described it as: "A self-sufficient drop-out family group farming in a remote part of Scotland decide to return South to investigate rumors of a subversive concert event that promises to shake and wake up apathetic, fearful British society. Ray is married to Sally, they hope to link up with their daughter Mary who has run away from home to attend the concert. They travel through the scarred wasteland of middle England in a motor caravan, running an air conditioner they hope will protect them from pollution."

As for the "teenage" bit, Townshend said: "There are regular people, but they're the scum off the surface; there's a few farmers there, that's where the thing from 'Baba O'Riley' comes in. It's mainly young people who are either farmer's kids whose parents can't afford to buy them experience suits; then there's just scum, like these two geezers who ride around in a battered-up old Cadillac limousine and they play old Who records on the tape deck... I call them Track fans." So basically, teenagers traveling across the wasteland to attend this concert.


The famous violin part was performed by Dave Arbus of the group East of Eden, who created what many consider the first Celtic Rock song with Jig a Jig




According to Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time, this violin jig at the end was drummer Keith Moon's idea. In concert, Roger Daltrey would play the jig on harmonica.


This began as part of Townshend's "Lifehouse" project, which is a film script he wrote. The playscript was published in 1999 by Pocket Books, Great Britain. In the screenplay of "Lifehouse," Townshend wrote about the composer (Bobby) setting up the concert: "An experiment Bobby conducts in which each participant [in the concert] is both blueprint and inspiration for a unique piece of music or song which will feature largely in the first event to be hacked onto the grid."



 

Townshend was never able to convince anyone to do the Lifehouse film, and he more or less gave up on that - but he never gave up on having it produced. He revised the script to be more relevant to the world of the Internet (which had caught up with his 1971 concept of a global grid), and to incorporate thoughts and insights he'd had in the ensuing 25+ years, and it was performed on BBC3 on December 5, 1999. A recording of that performance (along with a lot of additional material) is available from Townshend's mercantile website eelpie.com.


 
The final version of the song runs 5:01, but Townshend's instrumental synthesizer demo of the song was a healthy 9:48. This demo was released in 1972 on a Meher Baba tribute album called I Am.


 
In an interview with Billboard magazine carried out in February 2010, Townshend discussed how he feels now that 40 years on this and other Who songs take on a deeper meaning. He explained that when he wrote the band's classic tunes, "the music there was about living in the present and losing yourself in the moment. Now that has changed. Boomers kind of hang on to that as a memory.When I go back and listen to those songs, the Who songs in particular of the late '60s and early 70s, there was an aspiration in my writing to attune to the fact that what I could feel in he audience was - I won't say religious - but there was certainly a spiritual component to what people wanted their music to contain. There's definitely a higher call for the music now which is almost religious. U2, for example, are hugely successful with songs about inner longing for freedom, ideas.




A song like 'Baba O'Riley,' with 'we're all wasted,' it just meant 'we're all wasted' - it didn't have the significance that it now has. What we fear is that in actual fact we have wasted an opportunity. I think I speak for my audience when I say that, I hope I do."


 
 
This quickly became a concert favorite for The Who. Live versions of this song can be found on the albums The Kids Are Alright (1978), Concerts for the People of Kampuchea (1979), Who's Last (1982), The Blues To The Bush (1999) and The Who & Special Guests Live at the Royal Albert Hall video (2000).


 
 
While Townsend's keyboard playing is legendary and brilliant, it's not quite what it seems. When the song was recorded, the band's newly purchased Lowry organ came with a very special feature: a pedal that, when pressed, would repeat each note played three times in succession.



"Wont Get Fooled Again"


Pete Townshend wrote this song about a revolution. In the first verse, there is an uprising. In the middle, they overthrow those in power, but in the end, the new regime becomes just like the old one ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"). Townshend felt revolution was pointless because whoever takes over is destined to become corrupt. In Townshend A Career Biography  Pete explained that the song was antiestablishment, but that "revolution is not going to change anything in the long run, and people are going to get hurt."


 
The synthesizer represents the revolution. It builds at the beginning when the uprising starts, and comes back at the end when a new revolution is brewing.


 
The title never appears in the lyric, which goes:

I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again



 
Townshend wrote this as part of his "Lifehouse" project. He wanted to release a film about a futuristic world where the people are enslaved, but saved by a rock concert. Townshend couldn't get enough support to finish the project, but most of the songs he wrote were used on the Who's Next album.


 Roger Daltrey's scream is considered one of the best on any rock song. It was quite a convincing wail - so convincing that the rest of the band, lunching nearby, thought Daltrey was brawling with the engineer.


 
The album version runs 8:30. The single was shortened to 3:35 so radio stations would play it.




Daltrey was unhappy about the editing. He recalled to Uncut magazine: "I hated it when they chopped it down. I used to say 'F--k it, put it out as eight minutes', but there'd always be some excuse about not fitting it on or some technical thing at the pressing plant."




"After that we started to lose interest in singles because they'd cut them to bits," Daltrey added. "We thought, 'What's the point? Our music's evolved past the three-minute barrier and if they can't accommodate that we're just gonna have to live on albums.'"


 
In a 1985 "My Generation" radio special, Pete Townshend said he wrote the song as a message to the supposedly "new breed" of politicians who came around in the early '70s.


 
This is the last song on the album. It was also the last song they played at their concerts for many years.


 
This was one of the first times a synthesizer was used in the rhythm track. When they played this live, they had to play the synthesizer part off tape.


 
Townshend (from Rolling Stone magazine): "It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense when in fact it's such a cautionary piece."


 
Pete Townshend lived on Eel Pie Island in Richmond, London, when he wrote this song. There was an active commune on the Island at the time situated in what used to be a hotel. According to Townshend, this commune was an influence on the song. "There was like a love affair going on between me an them," he said. "They dug me because I was like a figurehead in a group, and I dug them because I could see what was going on over there. At one point there was an amazing scene where the commune was really working, but then the acid started flowing and I got on the end of some psychotic conversations."


 
This song was played by the remaining members of the band at "The Concert for New York City," a fundraising concert in the wake of the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001. Daltrey omitted the last line of the song: "Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss."


 
 
In The Simpsons episode "A Tale of Two Springfields," Homer forms "New Springfield" and gets The Who to play there. Pete Townshend blasts the wall between old and new Springfield by blasting the guitar riff from this song.


 
In its May 26, 2006 issue, the conservative National Review magazine published a list of "The 50 greatest conservative rock songs." "Won't Get Fooled Again" was ranked song number one. Pete Townsend responded on his blog as follows:
"It is not precisely a song that decries revolution - it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets - but that revolution, like all action can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything.'' Townsend then goes on to explain that the song was simply ''Meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the center of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause.''


 Pete Townshend refused Michael Moore permission to use this song in his 2004 anti-George W. Bush documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, citing the left wing filmaker as a "bully."

DAY 213.
Isaac Hayes.............................Shaft   (1971)






"Cotton Comes To Harlem" was screened first, but "Shaft" was the undisputed herald of early 1970s blaxploitation cinema. Widely influential at the time, it's soundtrack still makes the movie one of the best remembered icons of the era. 


"Fuck"

Last edited by arabchanter (10/3/2018 1:50 pm)

'Who's Next' is an enjoyable album. Though I prefer both 'Tommy' and 'Quadrophenia' from The Who, personally.

​'Tapestry' is a very good album. Carole King was a fine singer/ songwriter. Iconic album cover too.