DAY 330.
Led Zeppelin.........................Physical Graffiti   (1975)










Physical Graffiti was a bit of a chore for me, a double album for starters and also being the fourth album of theirs to be listed in this book, it really felt like I'd heard this all before (but I hadn't)

Have more or less said all I want to say about this band, I did buy Led Zeppelin lV and given the choice between this one and lV, I would still choose lV.


This album wont be going into my collection.



Bits & Bobs;



When 'Physical Graffiti' was released, all five of Zeppelin's previous albums re-entered the Billboard charts, making them the first band to have six albums chart at one time.



'Bron-Yr-Aur' was written around the time of 'Led Zeppelin III' but was finally released on 'Physical Graffiti'. Jimmy Page’s acoustic work was influenced by the likes of folk guitarists Bert Jansch and Davy Graham



Zeppelin were eager to record a double album as it was seen as the defining artistic statement of the time. 'Physical Graffiti' followed the Beatles’ 'White Album', The Rolling Stones’ ‘Exile on Main Street', Bob Dylan’s ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and, just the previous year, the Who’s ‘Quadrophenia.’



Of Kashmir’s famous riff, Page says: “I had it before going in there [to record]. I had a piece of music that I’d been working on, and just on the tail end of it I had that riff. I thought ‘Uh-oh. This is something I really want to try.’ I couldn’t wait to get into Headley Grange with John Bonham and do this.”



The album was recorded in the spring of 1974 at former poorhouse Headley Grange. Jimmy Page had a room in the freezing house but the rest of the band chose to stay nearby at a country hotel.



One morning during the recording process John Bonham arrived with a big bag containing 1,500 pills of the sedative Mandrax. He planned to conceal them from the rest of the band by taping them to the inside of his drum heads. A member of the crew pointed out the flaw in his plan: Bonham had a Perspex kit.




Of Bonham, sound engineer Benji LeFevre said: “Like most drummers, Bonzo tended to exceed the limit more than most people would. Sometimes he was particularly cruel to Mick Hinton — his roadie. Bonzo would punch him in the face for no reason at all.”



John Paul Jones’ clavinet line on ‘Trampled Under Foot’ was inspired by Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’.
‘In My Time of Dying’ is a reworking of Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Jesus, Make Up My Dying Bed’ from 1927. Another variation of the song was recorded by Bob Dylan.



Confusingly, ‘Houses Of The Holy’ appears on Physical Graffiti after being left off earlier album ‘Houses Of The Holy’. Rick Rubin once said of the track: "This is a funk jam with really interesting, jazzy chords. It's one of their more compact feeling songs. And it's the only Zep song to use what sounds like a cowbell."



John Paul Jones almost quit Zeppelin prior to recording the album as he’d been offered the position of choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral.




The buildings on the cover were the same ones that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were later filmed in front of in the video for The Rolling Stones’ ‘Waiting On A Friend’. Cover art designer Peter Corriston has said he was looking for a building that was symmetrical with interesting details.




'Boogie With Stu’ is so named because it is indeed a boogie with Ian Stewart, The Rolling Stones’ road manager and pianist.




Black Country Woman’ was recorded in the back garden of Mick Jagger's home, Stargroves, in 1972. Recording outdoors proved to be difficult. On one occasion at Headley Grange when Plant tried to go outside to sing the song, he was attacked by a flock of angry geese.




‘Kashmir’ is 8:28 minutes long, which radio stations said they would not have played if it hadn’t been for the success of the similarly lengthy ‘Stairway To Heaven’.



The session was marked by bouts of debauchery. Recording halted took while the band led farm animals up to the first floor of Headley Grange and and let off flares.



Recording was stopped for several weeks when one of the roadies, Peppy, drove John Bonham’s new car — a BMW 3.0 CSl — into a wall. Bonzo was so upset that Peppy hid in a wardrobe for 36 hours.



The term ‘Custard Pie’ refers to a woman's genitals, as in the lyrics: "Your custard pie, yeah, sweet and nice / When you cut it mama, save me a slice", as well as "chewin' a piece of your custard pie".



‘Down By The Seaside’ was heavily influenced by Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’. It was recorded in 1971 and was intended for release on 'Led Zeppelin IV' but was held for 'Physical Graffiti'.



Tom Morello says ‘The Wanton Song’ was a major influence for the verse riffing on Rage Against The Machines’ ‘Vietnow’.
 

 

Physical Graffiti: would have been a decent single album, if it hadn't been for Led Zep's egos. 

Reading some of the stuff you've posted re Bonham, the Rolling Stone magazine's top drummer of all time, reminds me of what an arsehole he was. 

DAY 332.
Aerosmith.................................Toys In The Attic   (1975)









That's more like it, I really enjoyed that always had a soft spot for Aerosmith hadn't listened to this album before but recognised a lot of the tracks. I found this one a good rockin' album without being too heavy and screachy, obviously "Walk This Way" is a great track, but also "Big Ten Inch Record" was a stand out (pun intended) but "No More, No More" is one of my favourite Aerosmith songs, and for me was the highlight of this album, but to be honest I liked all the tracks.


This album will be going into my collection, well worth a listen especially if like me you've listened to the amount of shite this book has served up lately, this was a breath of fresh air.




Bits & Bobs;


Steven Tyler once said, "I must have snorted all of Peru." Perry and Tyler were known as "The Toxic Twins" because of their drug habits in the '70s. Among the tales of their indulgent revelry: chainsaws brought to hotel rooms to facilitate their destruction, extension cords so they could see the TVs explode when they threw them into swimming pools, cases of vintage wine finished off on a regular basis. Their performances suffered as well. AsJoe Perry explained: "A lot of times we really sucked, but we'd stopped giving a s--t."


 
Tyler's real name is Steven Tallarico. His first band was called The Strangeurs, but they had to change their name because of a band called The Strangers. They became Chain Reaction, and Tallarico became Steven Tally. After Chain Reaction split up, he formed Aerosmith and became Steven Tyler. His first choice of stage name was Tyler Britt, but their manager talked him out of it and suggested Steven Tyler.


 
There is an Aerosmithsonian in the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston. It consists of Tyler's microphone stand appropriately draped with scarves, one of his stage outfits made by Teresa Tyler, as well as boots that Joe Perry wore, denim jacket and pants (embellished by Teresa Tyler) worn by Tom Hamilton, Joe Perry's guitar, and Joey Kramer's drum head.


 
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.


 
Their Greatest Hits Album is a diamond record, meaning it has sold over 10 million copies.


 
In their early years, they could have made a lot more money as a cover band, as club owners preferred acts that played recognizable hits. They were determined to play their own material, however, and took lots of high school dances and other low paying gigs while they built an audience and developed their repertoire. They were very tight for cash in these days.


 
They inspired the "Rock And Rollercoaster" at Disney's MGM Studios. Speakers in the headrests pump Aerosmith songs as the ride goes.



 
The entire band entered rehab in 1986. They made a very successful comeback when they got out.


 
Tyler's daughter, Liv, is a popular actress. She was born in 1977 to Bebe Buell, a legendary groupie who also had affairs with Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger, Elvis Costello, and Todd Rundgren. She told Liv that Rundgren was her father, and Liv didn't find out the truth until she was 11.


 
Aerosmith is the 5th best selling band of all time. They passed AC/DC in 2002.


 
Jennifer Anniston thinks Tyler is hot. When she was with Brad Pitt, she said that Tyler was the only guy she would leave him for.


 
Tyler was originally the band's drummer. He left for a short time, and then returned as the frontman.



 
In the 1970's, Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia called the band the druggiest people he'd ever seen.


 
Aerosmith appear in the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as the FVB (Future Villain Band). It is considered one of the worst movies ever, but they got to kill the Bee Gees.


 
Other occupations Tyler considered include gigolo, gourmet chef, and park ranger.


 
They were the first big Rock band to appear on The Simpsons as themselves. They were in the Flaming Moe episode in season 3. As part of the deal, Aerosmith's manager had to be drawn in as well, which he was.


 
Joe Perry got his first guitar when he was 6; it was a ukulele that his uncle made for him.


 
Tom Hamilton collects WWII paraphernalia.


 
Arrowsmith is the name of a 1925 novel by Sinclair Lewis, but it has nothing to do with the band name. Joey Kramer came up with "Aerosmith," which was rejected by one of his previous bands.


 
William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, officially declared April 13 to be "Aerosmith Day" in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The first Aerosmith Day was observed in 1993.


 
Aerosmith pays for admission-free Thursdays at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.


 
The members of Aerosmith are originally from the south shore of Boston: Medfield, Medway, Millis, Holliston, Westwood, basically anywhere along Route 109.


 
The members of Aerosmith have the doors to their dressing rooms decorated including a sign on Joe Perry's door that says "The Admiral is on Board."


 


Steven Tyler has a daughter named Mia, who is a well known plus sized model. She is half sister to Liv.


 
Rick Dufay, who replaced Brad Whitford, was thanked by Joe Perry at Aerosmith's 2001 induction to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for "Committing career suicide." Dufay made the suggestion to Steven Tyler that he reunite the original band for the sake of Aerosmith and especially Tyler.



 



Ray Tabano, who was a member of the original Aerosmith lineup before being replaced by Brad Whitford, designed the band's logo, which can be seen on the covers of Aerosmith's early albums, and the current Aerosmith wings logo.


 
In Rolling Stone magazine April 21, 2005, Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Slash said: "Guns n' Roses were asked to open for Aerosmith on their Permanent Vacation tour. We went to their manager's hotel room, and while he was in the bathroom we ordered $1,500 worth of room service and trashed the place. But they must have liked us a lot, because they put us on the bill anyway, and I've known them ever since."



 
Their backstage demands can be a bit decadent. One of the requirements on most of their tours is a V.I.P. Guest Room decorated in Eastern Indian style.



 
In 2002, Tyler found out he had hepatitis C. He was also dealing with a condition called Morton's neuroma, which crippled his toes. This led to a relapse, as he became addicted to pain medication and began doing cocaine again. An attempt at recording an album in 2008 with producer Brendan O'Brien failed, as both Tyler and Joe Perry were back on drugs.


 
The legendary music executive Clive Davis signed the band to Columbia Records in July, 1972, paying them a $125,000 advance. Aerosmith was the last act he signed to Columbia, as he soon moved on to Arista Records.


 
In the mid-'70s, Steven Tyler lived with a 16-year-old girl named Julia Holcomb, whose mother signed guardianship over to Tyler so he could move her to Boston. Tyler got her pregnant, and while he was on tour, their apartment caught fire. She escaped, but when she was being treated at the hospital, she says Tyler convinced her to get an abortion, which she did.


 
Steven Tyler was a member of the judging panel for American Idol during the program's tenth and eleventh seasons. Asked by Howard Stern why he took the gig, Tyler replied: "I took it because I was pissed off at the band. I fell offstage and nobody called me and I was also on drugs, so I held the grudge. You know, those guys suck, but I love 'em to fu--ing death."


 
Aerosmith played their first ever concert at Miscoe Hill School's gymnasium (it was then known as Nipmuc Regional High School), in Mendon, Massachusetts on November 6, 1970. They got the gig through Joe Perry's mother, who worked at a nearby school. She knew someone at Miscoe Hill and helped set it up.




Fuelled by pastries from Pozzo’s Italian Bakery and sirloins from Downey’s Steakhouse, they worked 16 hour days, six days a week, through the end of February. Songs went to tape, every one with its own distinct flavour: the hard-nosed raunch of Adam’s Apple; the delta blues of Uncle Salty; the horn-fuelled swinging cover of the old Bull Moose Jackson tune Big Ten Inch Record; and the two swaggering tunes that would help make Aerosmith’s career.


 What New York Dolls singer David Johansen once called “the nastiest song I’ve ever heard on the radio” began with a dose of inspiration from New Orleans and ended with another from Mel Brooks.


 Advertisement “I was very into funk like The Meters and Sly And The Family Stone at the time,” Perry says of Walk This Way. “So I felt inspired listening to this Meters song Hey Pocky A-Way, and thought maybe it’s time for us to come up with something of our own in this groove. I wrote the riff and chords in Hawaii before a show. The guys heard it, found their parts, and it evolved from there. Joey had played in R&B bands, so that groove was his meat and potatoes. When we got into the studio we recorded the track, but it was missing the lyric hook. Steven had the melody. He was about ninety per cent there.


 “One evening, we felt like we needed a break, so the guys went off to see Young Frankenstein. I’d already seen it. When they came back they were all laughing, and Jack was doing an imitation of Marty Feldman as Igor, saying: ‘Walk this way.’ Someone said: ‘Hey, that would be a great title for the song!’ Steven heard that, grabbed a pad and a pen, ran off and came back two hours later with the lyric.”




Curiously for such an acknowledged classic, the song failed to chart in its first run, in 1975, but on re-release a year later, climbed to No.10 in the US. It’s proto-rap delivery would boomerang around 10 years later for an even bigger impact, when their collaboration with Run DMC took the song into the Top 5 and introduced Aerosmith to a new generation.


 “Toys In The Attic was where I knew we’d made it,” said Tyler. “[With that title] I was the kid who put my initials in the rock ’cos I wanted the aliens to know I was there. It’s a statement of longevity; the record will be played long after you’re dead. Our records would be up there in the attic, too, with the things that you loved and never wanted to forget. And to me, Aerosmith was becoming that. I knew how The Beatles, The Animals and The Kinks did it – with lyrics and titles. I saw reason and rhyme in all the lunacy that we were concocting.”


 Advertisement “It arrived at the moment when I think rock’n’roll albums were becoming an important part of people’s lives,” says Perry. “It was an important ritual, waiting for a record to come out, going to the record store the day it was released, buying it, taking it home, cracking the plastic, dropping the needle, sitting down in front of the stereo and listening to every song while you stared at the cover and read the liner notes. The experience was bigger than the record itself. And that’s part of why Toys has endured.”

 

DAY 333.
David Bowie..........................Young Americans   (1975)









This album was Bowie in his "plastic soul" period, although enjoyable this isn't one of my favourites, I hadn't heard this album all the way through, a mate of mine had it and just played his favourite tracks.


Any ways, the opening track "Young Americans" and the two tracks with Lennon;  "Across The Universe" and "Fame" were the obvious stand outs for me with "Across The Universe" my favourite, tin hat on but I prefer this version to the Beatles a bit more emotion in the vocals, in my humbles.


This album unfortunately wont be making the cut, and wont be getting purchased.







Bits & Bobs;

Although 1974's Diamond Dogs LP arrived after David Bowie retired his Ziggy Stardust persona, the album still bore some of the hallmarks of that multi-platinum Stardust sound. But for his next effort, 1975's Young Americans, he gave his music a much more drastic overhaul.


 The changes started on the Diamond Dogs, which found Bowie tinkering relentlessly with his stage design and personnel during a series of dates that stretched from the summer of 1974 through the fall, and morphed from a massive production into a much more basic presentation. The arrangements shifted too, showcasing a much more soulful side of Bowie's music — all of which, as it turned out, signaled a bigger change behind the scenes.



 "It went from the East Coast to the West Coast as one band and came back from the West Coast to the East Coast as another band. I was in both of those bands," explained keyboard player Mike Garson. "Most of the people got fired in the Diamond Dogs band, which is the one we did [1974 double live album] David Live with, and then we came back with the Young Americans band, and I was made musical director, and I had Luther Vandross singing with me and David Sanborn playing and six backup singers and two drummers."


 While he didn't completely understand the reasons for the overhaul, Garson had an intimate view of the way the new personnel influenced Bowie's next evolution. "I don’t remember what went down, but something changed for him," he continued. "We changed bands in California and came back with a whole different thing, with the sort of soul vibe and the Young Americans vibe."
 Partly inspired by the flush of Philly soul acts hitting the charts at the time, Bowie reached out to the crew at the city's Sigma Sound Studios, intending to book a couple of weeks with the house band, MFSB.


 After a few scheduling wires were crossed, he ended up only having access to the group's conga player, Larry Washington, which necessitated the hiring of the band Garson described working with — an assortment of New York session players that included guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist Willie Weeks, drummer Andy Newmark, as well as future stars Sanborn and Vandross.


 "I didn’t know who Bowie was," Alomar told the Daily Mail in 2013. "But I did know this was the whitest man I’d ever seen – translucent white. And he had orange hair. He was thin and weighed about 98 pounds. At one point, I said he looked like s--- and needed some food. 'You need to let my wife make you some chicken, rice and beans, and fatten you up.' Next thing I know, a limousine rolls up to my house in Queens."


 Young Americans would catch some listeners by surprise when it arrived in stores on March 7, 1975, but producer Tony Visconti claimed not to have been caught off guard by the change in direction. "He's been working to put together an R&B sound for years," he insisted. "Every British musician has a hidden desire to be black."


 Visconti expanded on that argument in a later conversation, adding, "Most British singers — and most English bands — grew up listening to early American R&B and blues. David was of that same ilk. He adored Little Richard and other R&B artists from the ’50s. He was also addicted to Soul Train. He watched it all the time and actually became the first non-black artist to appear on the show. So it seemed obvious to make an R&B record. And what better place to do that than Sigma Sound in Philadelphia? So yes, that album had its own world and universe. Before then, I don’t think we had worked with any black musicians. That album, to this day, sounds terrifically fresh. It’s one of my favorite Bowie albums."

 Like most rock records at the time, Young Americans came together quickly — so quickly, in fact, that Visconti remembered Bowie scrambling to fill out the running order with material, writing the song "Win" in order to pad out the album and using a Vandross composition, originally titled "Funky Music," as the basis for what ultimately became "Fascination." As Sanborn later said, his impression at the time was one of orchestrated chaos, and he had no idea what to expect from the final product. "Those sessions had been so loose," he admitted, "that I was shocked by how coherent it all seemed when I heard the finished track."


 For inspiration, Bowie also turned to Bruce Springsteen, whom he'd been aware of since seeing him open for Bowie's friend Biff Rose in 1973. Although it wouldn't see release until it surfaced with the previously unreleased material on his Sound + Vision box, Bowie attempted to complete a cover of Springsteen's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" for Young Americans — and even got to play it for Springsteen, who stopped by the studio while Bowie was recording. "He was very shy. I remember sitting in the corridor with him, talking about his lifestyle, which was a very Dylanesque — you know, moving from town to town with a guitar on his back, all that kind of thing," wrote Bowie later. "Anyway, he didn't like what we were doing, I remember that. At least, he didn't express much enthusiasm. I guess he must have thought it was all kind of odd. I was in another universe at the time. I've got this extraordinarily strange photograph of us all — I look like I'm made out of wax."


 Springsteen wasn't the only outside musician who drifted into the Young Americans sessions. Toward the end of recording, Bowie met up with John Lennon, sparking a collaboration that ended up producing the No. 1 Americans single "Fame" — much to the lasting chagrin of Visconti, who'd left town to put the finishing touches on the LP.


 "A week or so later I was in London mixing the album and I got a call from David. 'Er, Tony. I don't know how to tell you this, but John and I wrote a song together and we recorded and mixed it. It's called 'Fame,'" recalled Visconti years later. "He explained that he went back to the studio and recorded Lennon's 'Across the Universe' for a lark and it turned out good enough to include on Young Americans. He later played the track to Lennon, who thought it was cool, then David asked him it he would like to write and record a new song together. This led to the making of 'Fame.'"


 "That period in my life is none too clear, a lot of it is really blurry, but we spent endless hours talking about fame, and what it's like not having a life of your own anymore," Bowie recalled in a 1983 interview with Musician magazine. "How much you want to be known before you are, and then when you are, how much you want the reverse: 'I don't want to do these interviews! I don't want to have these photographs taken!' We wondered how that slow change takes place, and why it isn't everything it should have been. I guess it was inevitable that the subject matter of the song would be about the subject matter of those conversations."


 According to Bowie, the song came together abnormally quickly. "God, that session was fast. That was an evening's work! While John and Carlos Alomar were sketching out the guitar stuff in the studio, I was starting to work out the lyric in the control room. I was so excited about John, and he loved working with my band because they were playing old soul tracks and Stax things. John was so up, had so much energy; it must have been so exciting to always be around him."


 Bolstered by "Fame" and the Top 40 success of the title track, Young Americans rose to No. 2 in the U.K. and No. 9 in the States, turning Bowie's self-described "plastic soul" into platinum. Ever restless (and ever moreintoxicated by controlled substances), he had already started moving on by the time he delivered his 10th studio LP, Station to Station, the following January — but it remains a beloved bright spot in a discography with more than its share, still warmly regarded by many of the musicians involved in the sessions.


 "He was on rare form," Garson told Uncut in 2014. "He was weird then, but the good music always sticks. He would have created that music with or without drugs. It just so happened he was on drugs.""I think that at the moment of Young Americans, theatrics were not necessary," added Alomar. "I think it was, ‘I’m looking for the soul of Bowie on this record, I don’t need theatrics, I don’t need a mask. I am able to say what I want, say who I am and be who I am.’"

Bowie's "Young Americans" is one of the better albums on here recently, and one of Bowie's worst.

DAY 337.
Dion.............................................................Born To Be With You   (1975)









Born To Be With You was all but dismissed by critics as a dirge, later fans as disparate as Pete Townsend and Primal Screams Bobby Gillespie proclaimed it's brilliance.

And in retrospect, it is hard to see why these tales of heartbreak and loss, and sheer wonder at the beauty of life, sung with such striking conviction and complemented by majestic arrangements, elicited insults. Nevertheless, Spector initially blocked the release.



Free day to myself the morra, will make sure we're back on track by end of day!

Last edited by arabchanter (12/7/2018 10:45 am)

DAY 334.
Burning Spear.......................................Marcus Garvey   (1975)










Sorry had more than one course at dinner time.


A lot of guys a new used to be right into reggae, and I have heard of Burning Spear and their album covers are all familiar, but I can't say I consciously can remember listening to any of their music till now. That's not to say I haven't been the worse for wear and heard them, I listened to a lot of reggae while not entirely focusing on anything in particular.


Anyways back to the album, I liked this album, I wouldn't say it was a great album, but it is one I think that could be a grower, although part politico it didn't put me off, in fact to be honest as with a lot of reggae the lyrics sometimes get a bit overshadowed by the music for this listener.


This for me was a good solid roots album, and though I found it very enjoyable, I will have to just get a free download rather than put it in my vinyl collection, but this could easily change the more I listen to it.



Bits & Bobs;



There is a reason why many fans cite Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey as the greatest reggae album ever made. Such definitive claims are impossible to verify, but if you’re looking for a coherent, properly-thought-out, brilliantly produced, sung-from-the-heart album, with songs that stick with you and are written about a subject the singer clearly cares deeply about – and who isn’t? – you have come to the right place



Released on 12 December 1975, and a word-of-mouth success rather than an overnight one, Burning Spear’s third album might as well have been his first for all the impact his previous records had made, fine though they are. In fact, “his” is not an entirely accurate description here. Marcus Garvey presents a three-piece vocal ensemble, though there’s no doubt the main man is Burning Spear, aka Winston Rodney: he of the hoarse, totally committed, soul-stirring voice. In support, Rupert Wellington and Delroy Hines offer backing vocals that serve to emphasise just how brilliant the lead lines are.


 Rodney’s previous work at Studio One had been fine as far as it went, and was retrospectively much-loved, but here he sounds fired up, like he’s at last found the situation he needed to be truly free with his music. Rodney gets the credit for the magical arrangements, but accolades must also go to Jack Ruby, Rodney’s local sound man on Jamaica’s north coast. Ruby (real name Laurence Lindo) gives Spear’s creativity room to move amid exemplary playing from some of reggae’s greatest musicians. The results are close to perfection.


 Doubtless the aim here was not just to make a fabulous record; it was for Spear to put across his Rastafarian beliefs and draw attention to the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican political philosopher whose Pan-Africanism movement came close to bringing about the Rasta ideal of former slaves returning to the homeland. From the opening line of the title track, Spear is intent on putting across Garvey’s relevance to the modern poor in Jamaica, and is asking why, on ‘Old Marcus Garvey’, other black nationalists and philosophers are remembered and eulogised when the founder of the Black Star Line goes unmentioned.


 ‘Slavery Days’ reminds the listener why Jamaica’s poor are in the condition they are in; ‘Invasion’ identifies the diaspora and wonders why black people are united elsewhere but not in Jamaica. ‘Live Good’, with its flute winding around the melody, is a musical Eden, in contrast to the subject matter, with a resigned Spear trying to do his best in the face of injustice – whether personal or general is not made clear. ‘Jordan River’ and ‘Red, Gold And Green’ rock minor keys, the former steadily rising to a swirling eddy, while the latter is as deep as the river itself, dark and full of fertile waters. ‘Tradition’ has a stepping militancy, a march made light with the rural, human-level atmosphere of the music, as Spear sings of a culture that traces back thousands of years. ‘Give Me’ calls for justice; ‘Resting Place’, with Spear looking for relief from his travails, deserves its position as the closing track, which makes it seem strange that the song was omitted from the original Jamaican pressing of the album and kept as a single.


 Though this is reggae militancy as potent as it comes, it’s presented in an utterly accessible way and with a sense of space that belongs to the rural Jamaica where Winston Rodney sprang from. The record’s success, beyond its obvious artistic brilliance, can be traced to the facts that so many of its songs were covered by other reggae stars to become hits; that it made Jack Ruby a force in reggae despite his inexperience as a producer; that it made Spear a star; and that it had a broader cultural effect: suddenly Marcus Garvey was back on the agenda of black politics, and the record encouraged numerous black youths to remember their roots, let their hair knot, and go to Rastafari.


 So Spear did what he set out to do. And in doing so, he gave us an album of unarguable brilliance: inspired, civilised, black, proud and beautiful.



A few bits & bobs about the man Marcus Mosiah Garvey;



Marcus Garvey was born in 1887 into a fairly well off family in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica (close to Ocho Rios). From a very early age Garvey loved to spend hours in his father’s library pouring over books. Although Garvey spent a few years in St. Ann’s Bay’s schools, he was mostly self-taught.


Garvey’s love of reading eventually led him to leave St. Ann’s in search of a better life in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. Once he arrived in Kingston in his teens, Garvey started working at a printing press.



 In 1910, Garvey decided to visit his uncle in Costa Rica. In addition to visiting with family, Garvey had a deep desire to see how people lived in other parts of the world. While in Costa Rica, Garvey was able to find work editing local newspapers. In 1911, Garvey went off to work on a newspaper headquartered in Panama.

  Throughout Garvey’s voyages in the Caribbean and Latin America, he saw the horrible conditions of Blacks first-hand. These early trips would influence Garvey’s anti-colonialism and activism later in life. Garvey eventually left Panama to study law in England. After studying for a few years, Garvey returned to Jamaica and then went on to tour the USA.



Of all the facts about Marcus Garvey on this list, the one he is best remembered for is founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey was in Ohio when he formally organized the UNIA in 1914. The main goals of this association were to unite people of African descent around the world and to promote Black pride and economic independence in Black communities.





Another one of the UNIA’s main goals was to create a totally Black governed society in the African continent. At its height in the 1920s, the UNIA had well over one million members and thousands of headquarters around the world.



Most of the UNIA branches were in the USA, but there were also offices in Cuba, Ghana, and Nigeria. The UNIA remains active today and is now headed by President Cleophus Miller, Junior.



While he was setting up the UNIA in Harlem, Garvey founded the Negro World newspaper to advance his ideas of Pan-Africanism and economic self-reliance in Black communities. In his dozens of articles, Garvey argued that Blacks could only hope to achieve liberation by working to raise their economic standing in cities using the capitalist model.



To help African Americans advance towards prosperity, Garvey created numerous companies in areas like Harlem. A few of these businesses included hotels, laundromats, and restaurants.



He also founded the shipping company Black Star Line in 1919. Black Star Line was designed to increase self-sufficiency and communications within the African Diaspora. Black Star Line encouraged people to buy goods and services from Black-owned businesses primarily in Africa and Latin America.



One of the more controversial facts about Marcus Garvey has to do with his views on Black seperatism. Garvey considered himself a Black Nationalist first and foremost. He believed Blacks shouldn’t focus on integrating into White societies, but rather focus on advancing themselves economically and then creating a totally Black-governed Africa.



Basically, Garvey believed in the idea of “Africa for Africans” just as he believed “Asia for Asians” and “Europe for Europeans.” Interestingly, these ideas even led Garvey to tacitly support the racial separatism of the Ku Klux Klan. Of course, Garvey’s theories led to great conflicts with leading integrationist intellectuals of the time like W.E.B. Du Bois.



While most people nowadays don’t have issues with his critiques of European colonialism, many multiculturalism proponents have problems with Garvey’s racial theories.




At the height of his fame, Marcus Garvey attracted thousands of spectators in a Harlem parade. He was even called the “Black Moses” by supporters. Sadly, that fame was only short lived. Many of Garvey’s business ventures went bust and then in 1922 he was arrested for mail fraud. Garvey was sentenced to five years imprisonment, but President Coolidge pardoned him in 1927.



Garvey was forced to return to Jamaica a broken man. His UNIA never achieved the same amount of prestige after his arrest. Garvey eventually decided to travel back to London where he passed away in 1940. He was initially buried at Kensal Green cemetery, but his remains were later brought to Kingston, Jamaica.



There are many plaques and monuments dedicated to Garvey’s legacy al over the world. Visitors to the British capital can find one of the iconic blue memorial plaques where Marcus Garvey lived his final years at , 53 Talgarth Road Hammersmith. There’s also a Marcus Garvey Centre  in Nottingham and a Marcus Garvey library in north London.



In Jamaica, local authorities have honored Garvey with a place on the $20 coin. There’s also a statue of Garvey in Kingston and a scholarship in his honor. Lastly, even Marcus Garvey didn’t spend any time in Canada, Toronto locals celebrate Marcus Garvey’s birthday on August 17th every year.




One of the most interesting facts about Marcus Garvey is that he’s considered a prophet in the Rastafari religion. Rastafaris believe Garvey accurately predicted the rise of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. For Rastafaris, Haile Selassie I is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on earth and signals a golden age for Africa in the near future.



The quote Rastafaris point to in connection with Garvey was in a 1916 interview when Garvey apparently told followers to look out for the coronation of a Black king in Africa.



Many Rastafaris are influenced by Garvey’s “Back to Africa” ideology and support racial separatism. One of the major holidays on the Rastafari calendar is Marcus Garvey's birthday. Rastafaris often meet during this day to discuss Garvey’s philosophy, dance, and indulge in the “holy weed” marijuana.




In 1969, the Jamaican government formally recognized Marcus Garvey as its first National Hero.He was conferred with the Order of the National Hero in 1969 at what was only the second schedule of the National Honours and Awards Act.



Just a wee bit extra, I used to live in the Talgarth Road (where the blue plaque is) area back in the day, but no' as far back as him.

Anyways, loads of Scottish boys in the area, round the corner, off Talgarth Road was "The Three Kings" now I think called "The Famous Three Kings" and famous for live bands when it was known as "The Nashville Rooms" but around the corner from that was "The Barons Ale House" which was full of Scottish people and quite a lot of Dundee lads used it, in fact the pub was run by  Dundee boys for quite a while, spent many a fine night/morning in there.



Some may recall this, The Three Kings was right across the road.










 
 
 

DAY 335
Bruce Springsteen...............................Born To Run   (1975)









I've never listened to a Springsteen album all the way through until today, and have to admit I wasn't really that bad a judge. Now, to be fair I do think his style would be absolutely fantastic live, but a whole album was a bit much for me, on the plus side I did enjoy the title track and "Thunder Road" although were both teetering on the edge of my personal zone out, 4 to 5 minutes max for a track, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out was more like it timewise, but what the fuck was going on with "Jungleland" nine and a half bloody minutes,  four to five would have been more than adequate for me.



As said earlier I think I would like him in concert, but this wasn't an album that I could listen to all the way through in a single sitting, and as such it wont be going into my collection.




Bits & Bobbs;


Springsteen broke up his E-Street Band in 1989 and performed as a solo artist for most of the '90s. In 1995, he did a solo tour in small venues to support the rather depressing Ghost of Tom Joad album.


 
Springsteen's concerts in the 1970's and '80s were a religious display of energy, charisma and stamina, usually carrying on for over 4 hours straight. The E Street Band was reunited in 1999 for a world tour that started in Europe and kicked off in America with 15 dates at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Bruce and the E Street Band still play for 3 hours minimum.


 
Bruce is the president and sole benefactor of The Foundation, a charity that provides low income people in Monmouth County, New Jersey, with home repairs.


 
He hates his nickname "The Boss." It was given to him by overwhelmed musicians in Asbury Park, NJ in the early '70s.


 
He retains strict control of his publishing and doesn't allow his songs to be used in commercials. However, sales of Levi's went up after Born In The USA showed him wearing their jeans on the album cover.


 
Springsteen never had a job besides making and playing music.


 
Writing through characters is a way for Springsteen to keep his ego in check and remain a keen observer of the world around him. "The mistake is in thinking that you are those songs," he said in a 1974 interview with ZigZag. "To me a song is a vision, a flash, and what I see is characters in situations."


 
Springsteen performed on David Letterman's last show on NBC.


 
He inducted Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, U2 and Creedence Clearwater Revival into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was inducted by Bono in 1999.


 
He appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek on October 27, 1975, becoming the first entertainer to do so.


 
E-Street Drummer Max Weinberg is the drummer for the late night talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien.


 
One of the villains in the Dick Tracy comic strip wore an E Street Band T-shirt.


 
In 1984, Springsteen expressed his anger at President Reagan for trying to use his music for political purposes. When living in California in the mid-1990s, Springsteen found himself one of Reagan's neighbours.


 
The decision to build the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was based partly on a survey showing that people who attended Springsteen concerts also love to gamble.


 
Despite his massive popularity, Springsteen has never had a #1 single.


 
Bruce Springsteen's rider for his 2002-2003 tour included a security guard to watch over his guitars exclusively.


 
Bruce's father, Douglas Springsteen, was largely unemployed when he was growing up, leaving his mother, Adele Ann, to be the family's breadwinner with her job as a legal secretary.


 
Bruce's younger sister, Pamela, is a still photographer. She took photos for his Human Touch, Lucky Town and The Ghost of Tom Joad albums.


 
Springsteen was called up to serve in Vietnam, but failed his physical examination having suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17. This together with his "crazy" behavior at induction resulted in being enough to get him a 4F, which disqualified Bruce from serving in uniform.


 
A 1985 Springsteen gig almost rocked the Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden to pieces. The owners had to spend $5 million drilling concrete pillars down through clay into solid bedrock.


 
Springsteen was born in a Roman Catholic household and peppers his lyrics with spiritual imagery. In 2013, Rutgers University in New Jersey began offering students a course on the theological underpinnings of Springsteen's lyrics, looking at how he has interpreted biblical texts in his work.


 
He made a cameo in the 2000 John Cusak movie Hi Fidelity.


 
Bruce Springsteen's first vehicle was a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air. "In '70s New Jersey, the car was still a powerful image," Springsteen wrote in his book Songs. "That summer I bought my first set of wheels for $2,000. It was a '57 Chevy with dual, four-barrel carbs, a Hurst on the floor and orange flames spread across the hood."


Springsteen started writing the album’s iconic title track when he was just 24 years old.



It took Springsteen six months to perfect the song “Born to Run” in the studio. Over half a year, he made numerous alterations that didn’t all stick, including a backing chorus and various string arrangements.




The first documented live performance of “Born to Run” took place at Harvard Square Theater on May 9, 1974. Springsteen’s future manager Jon Landau was in the audience, and his review of that show featured this iconic line: “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”




One of Springsteen’s inspirations for the production of “Born to Run” was Phil Spector, whose Wall of Sound recording style was behind countless hits of the ‘60s, including Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” and The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.”



The single “Born to Run” made its radio premiere on Nov. 3, 1974 on Philadelphia rock station WMMR, nine months before the album dropped.




“Born to Run” was Springsteen’s first album to officially feature longtime bandmates Steven Van Zandt, Roy Bittan, and Max Weinberg.



All tracks on “Born to Run” were originally composed on piano. That fact is especially evident on songs like “Backstreets,” something Springsteen has called a “particularly theatrical way of writing” unique to this album.




Springsteen and saxophonist Clarence Clemons worked on the “Jungleland” saxophone solo for 16 straight hours on the day before they had to go on the road to launch their tour. They cut it so close, Clemons said, “They were packing the truck up, and I was playing the last notes of the “Jungleland” solo.”




Thank Stevie Van Zandt for the iconic horn sound on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” The horns players were having trouble translating Springsteen’s sonic vision from paper to reality, so Van Zandt jumped in and sang the soulful, Stax-inspired riff that ended up on the record.




To stay awake during the excruciatingly long studio hours, engineer Jimmy Iovine would chew the aluminum foil wrapper from sticks of gum.




After the album dropped, Springsteen’s then-manager Mike Appel arranged for Bruce to appear on the covers of Newsweek and Time on the same day (Oct. 27, 1975).



Springsteen and the E Street Band played 10 concerts at New York’s Bottom Line to build hype before the album was released. You can listen to New York station WNEW’s full broadcast of the early show on Aug. 15, 1975 online.




Photographer Eric Meola, who captured the iconic “Born to Run” cover image, took nearly 600 photos in this album’s two-hour cover shoot. Springsteen was only looking directly at Clemons in two of those photos.



The guitar featured on the “Born to Run” cover reportedly cost Springsteen just $185. The iconic rock instrument later appeared on covers of “Human Touch,” as well as a live and a greatest hits compilation.




Springsteen wanted to bring Clemons to the photo shoot so the cover would embody one the record’s main themes. Springsteen said, “That was enormously significant, I think, as a message to send to our fans: the sense that it was a record about friendship.”




Meola also noted that there are more people than just Springsteen and Clemons on the cover. Springsteen is also sporting an Elvis pin, and there’s a
tiny painting of people in a street scene on his guitar.



On the first “Born to Run” pressing, producer Jon Landau’s name was spelled incorrectly (as “John”). Instead of reprinting the covers, Columbia Records printed tens of thousands of stickers that had to manually be placed on each album to cover up the mistake.




“Born to Run” was Bruce Springsteen’s first top 10 album. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. All but one of his 15 subsequent studio albums have also landed in the top 5 slots.




During his 1976 tour in support of the album, Springsteen became the first rock act  to headline Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House (April 28, 1976).




On April 30, 1976, the day after the Born to Run Tour stop in Memphis, Springsteen jumped the gates to Elvis’ Graceland mansion. Before reaching the front door, he was caught by security guards and promptly escorted off the property.




Springsteen and the band began a tradition of playing softball against the roadies to pass time on the 1976 Born to Run tours. Rolling Stone writer Jim Petersen  of a game in New Orleans that summer.



Due to managerial conflicts with Mike Appel in 1976, Springsteen was unable to begin recording his follow-up to “Born to Run.” Instead, the band went on the road for a venture that was tongue-in-cheek unofficially titled The Lawsuit Tour.




The Lawsuit Tour featured Springsteen’s first headlining arena show at The Spectrum in Philadelphia on Oct. 25, 1976. (He partitioned off sections of the venue with curtains to make it feel smaller.)




The band’s first European show took place at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on Nov. 18, 1975. The venue was littered with promotional materials that Springsteen felt were over the top, so he personally went through and tore all the posters down.



According to BruceBase's tally, “Born to Run” is the most performed song of Springsteen’s career, with 1,383 live plays as of July 24, 2015.



The first time Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed “Born to Run” live in its entirety was May 7, 2008, at a fundraiser for New Jersey’s Count Basie's Theatre




“Born to Run” is Springsteen’s only album that has been selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. The album was chosen for the honour in 2003.




Handwritten “Born to Run” lyrics sold at auction for $197,000 in 2013. That number was $97,000 over Sotheby’s original estimated worth.




 “Born to Run” ranks at No.21 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The album of the same name is listed at No.18 on the publication’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.




In 1980, the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey passed a resolution naming Bruce Springsteen the New Jersey Pop Music Ambassador to America, and his song “Born to Run” as the “unofficial rock theme of [the] State’s youth.” (The resolution was never approved by the state Senate.)
 

DAY 336.
Emmylou Harris..........................................Pieces Of The Sky   (1975)









Can't say I enjoyed that, the lassie has a good voice, but only in small doses, this album is what you would expect from a country album, doom and gloom, a bit of drinking, steel pedal guitar and not forgetting the wobbly vocals.


No surprises on this album, for me the usual country pish, none of the tracks were memorable the only saving grace was she wasn't hard on the eyes,but this album wont be going into my collection.




Bits & Bobs;


Emmylou Harris is a singer-songwriter and accomplished musician. She is known for her straightforward singing style, sharp ear for a good melody, and ability to bring out previously unheard beauty in her renditions of other musicians' songs. Harris's signature style combines talented guitar playing and singing with an earnest musical style that blends classic country, folk and rock influences.


 
Harris, born in 1947 to a southern military family, has lived in various parts of the US. She was class valedictorian at her Virginia high school. Her father was missing in action for ten months during the Korean War, a family experience Harris describes in her song "The Ship on His Arm." Harris has remained close with her parents throughout her life, bringing her daughter to live with them after her brief marriage to songwriter Tom Slocum ended in 1969.


She moved to New York City in the late 1960s, where she waitressed while performing in Greenwich Village. She would go on to win 12 Grammy Awards over the next fifty years. A sought-after collaborator, Harris has worked with artists from Roy Orbison to Neil Young, Dolly Parton to Linda Rondstadt.


 
Emmylou Harris's career includes many deft covers of other artists' songs, such as Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty," "(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie" by Chuck Berry, and "Mr. Sandman" by Pat Ballard, for which Harris was initially best-known. But a special relationship with a mentor expanded her confidence in her own songwriting abilities. Harris credits Gram Parsons with developing her as a musician and as a person: "I think you get to a certain point in your life where you do gaze back over the years and it's sort of a celebration or a thank-you for the fact that you cross paths with people who change you forever. Certainly Gram did that; I did come down walking in his shoes and trying to carry on for him. So I really just told that story the way I see it in my mind, the brief time we had and how I couldn't imagine that Gram wouldn't be around forever. Life goes on and unfolds before you, but those people and those events that change you forever are always with you. It was an important event that determined the trajectory of my life and, more than anything, of my work."


 
Gram Parsons' and Emmylou Harris's collaborative relationship was groundbreaking for Country music of the 1970s. Their work together added more variety, roots influence and old country feel to the genre. "Luxury Liner and She" by Gram Parsons became some of Emmylou Harris's earliest hits, on her 1977 album Luxury Liner. When Parsons passed away from a drug overdose in 1973, Harris had to adjust much of her way of life and music-making. Working past this tragedy, Harris chose to take up Parson's musical mantle. Her song "Boulder to Birmingham" is about the loss of Parsons as a friend and collaborator.


 
Harris is a devoted dog lover- she takes two dogs on the road with her when she tours. Her dog Bella is the namesake of Harris's song "Big Black Dog." Harris rescued Bella as a part of her Bonaparte's Retreat dog rescue, which she runs out of her home. She says of her canine love: "She goes on the tour bus with me now, along with another one of my rescues. I think of all the years on the road I wasted without a dog. They make it so much more pleasant. I'm making up for lost time now, that's for sure."


 
About her relationship with collaborator, friend and mentor Gram Parsons, Harris wrote "Boulder to Birmingham" The goodbye track became one of her signature singles, and went on to be covered by Joan Baez. In it, Harris sings, "Well you really got me this time/ And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive." The song of loss resonated with many, and helped to cement Emmylou Harris's introduction to popular music as an American great.



 
In 1977 she married Brian Ahern, the Canadian producer who had worked with her on Pieces of the Sky album.


 
In her later life, Emmylou Harris has become known for aging with wise grace, in addition to her long musical career. She says: "We age; we don't have any choice. You might as well accept where you are in life. That doesn't mean there's a not a certain nostalgia for your youth; it's just part of the human condition. But it's easy for me because I have had such a wonderful life."


 
After releasing 1975's Pieces of the Sky Emmylou Harris was told by her record label to form a "hot band," and with tonge-in-cheek flair, she put together a group of musicians that she called The Hot Band.





"Boulder to Birmingham"



Emmylou Harris co-wrote this song with Bill Danoff after the death of Gram Parsons. The song has become famous for its heart-rending chorus:

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham
I would hold my life in his saving grace
I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham
If I thought I could see, I could see your face

The song is specifically about Parsons, but the song became a source of comfort for many people who could relate to the sentiment of losing someone close.


 
Early in her career, Harris toured with Gram Parsons and sang on his 1973 album GP. Parsons, who was a Country-Rock innovator, mentored Harris at a time when she was struggling in the business - her first album went nowhere and she was playing bars in the Washington DC area before teaming up with Parsons. They became good friends and showed incredible chemistry on their recordings and performances.



Later in 1973, they were working on an album together when Parsons died of a drug overdose. The album, Grievous Angel, was posthumously released in 1974. Harris was devastated by Parson's death and expressed that sadness in this song. She said learning that Parsons had died was "like falling off a mountain."


 
Harris wrote about half of the songs on her 1969 debut album, but this was the only one she had a hand in writing for her second album, Pieces of the Sky. She wrote the lyrics to the song, and Bill Danoff composed the music.



Danoff and his wife Taffy Nivert were well known in the DC music scene; they had co-written the John Denver hits "Take Me Home Country Roads" and "Friends With You." The year after Harris released Pieces of the Sky, Danoff had a huge hit with his group the Starland Vocal Band in "Afternoon Delight," which is titled after the appetizer menu at a DC restaurant/bar called Clyde's Of Georgetown. Harris had a regular gig there in the early '70s.


 
After Gram Parsons died, two of his friends stole his body and set it on fire in the Mohave desert, which they claimed was Parsons' directive. The line in this song "I was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire," is often interpreted to be about this burning, but it was actually a reference to 1974 wildfires in the Coldwater Canyon section of Los Angeles, which is where Harris recorded the album.


 
Brian Ahern, who had previously worked with Anne Murray, produced the Pieces of the Sky album. This song is a great example of his production strategy, which was to focus on the voice. There are no background vocals and the various instruments - including acoustic and pedal steel guitar - are carefully mixed to accentuate the singing.


Ahern stayed on as Harris' producer and the two formed a romantic relationship. They married in 1977 the same month Harris' third Ahern-produced album, Luxury Liner, was released. They divorced in 1984.


 
The Hollies recorded this for their 1976 album Write On.


 
A cover by the Alternative Rock band The Fray appears as a bonus track on the iTunes deluxe version of their third album Scars & Stories. They persuaded Harris to appear on their version but nearly fell out with the Nashville legend when working on the song with her. "We met and sat down with Emmylou," singer Isaac Slade recalled. "She showed us the ropes. She scolded me a little bit and put me in my place because I was getting a little rock star and giving Emmylou advice, which is something you don't do. You listen and don't talk. And we just did it in one afternoon."


 
 

DAY 337.
Dion.............................................................Born To Be With You   (1975)









Straight off just let me say the boy DiMucci is a pretty good chanter, but mixed with Spectors "wall of sound," for me didnae do him any favours. I have never really been impressed with Spector, a bit of a one trick pony in my humbles, I liked a few Dion and the Belmonts numbers, but this album really didn't have anything on there that I would personally want to revisit, and as such wont be going in my collection.



Bits & Pieces;



This is a review I found interesting, but still not convinced;



IMAGINE if you made the best record of your career, in collaboration with one of your heroes, and it was released only abroad, leaving such minuscule trace that its existence wouldn't even be acknowledged in most rock history books. What if it was an album about love, religion and dope, with such a mesmerising, omniscient aura that it sounded like God singing a lullaby to a junkie? What if it took more than 20 years for other records to sound anything like it, but, when they did, they were hailed as "visionry" and "futuristic"? What if it was one of the greatest albums ever made, but you didn't even realise it?


Dion DiMucci seems a bit baffled to hear a British writer raving about Born to Be with You, the album that he made in 1975 with Phil Spector, re-released by Ace records on March 12. "I don't think we ever really finished that," he tells me over the phone from Florida, where he now lives. "It kind of majored on the minors. A lot of the focus went on the showbusiness thing and not enough went on the music." I feel as if I've just asked Van Gogh about his Sunflowers, and he's simply shrugged, adding, "Oh, that little thing."



 Dion, like his old friend Bobby Darin, is one of those singers who play a Zelig role in pop's evolution: ubiquitous yet elusive. You know their songs better than you think you do, and better than you know the person himself, and you can't believe they're all by the same artist.


 Dion used music as a way out of his Italian-American neighbourhood in the Bronx, where he was born in 1939. He sang doo-wop with his backing group, the Belmonts, then - as a solo artist - punchy delinquent anthems such as Runaround Sue (1961) and The Wanderer (1962). Though his press shots projected a clean-cut, dapper image, he was also becoming a user of heroin, a drug with which he had first experimented at 14.


 By the time the Sixties began in earnest, with Beatlemania, he had narrowly escaped death after cancelling his ticket for the flight that killed Buddy Holly (his parents had argued that they needed the $37 fare for his rent). His biggest hits were behind him and he was seeking counselling for his drug addiction. But while his rock'n'roll era drug buddy Frankie Lymon overdosed, Dion found God, sobered up and returned in 1968 with the hit ballad Abraham, Martin and John, restablishing his career on a minor level.


 Phil Spector was another kid from the New York streets. "We probably threw stones at the same gangs, at each other," he once said of Dion. But while Dion spent the mid-Sixties in rehabilitation, Spector was becoming what Tom Wolfe described as "the First Tycoon of Teen", producing hits for acts including the Ronettes, the Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner. By the time of the Born to Be With You album, he had struck a deal with Elektra/Asylum records, which gave him carte blanche to work with any artist on their roster. He had also, however, developed a reputation as a crazed megalomaniac.


 Dion, meanwhile, had been clean and "at peace" for seven years - which is odd, because Born to Be with You sounds as if its creator saw the error of his ways and discovered the true meaning of life the night before he entered the studio.


 The track Your Own Back Yard could be the best anti-drug song ever - it might even be the best drug song of any kind. It is perceptive and funny ("I can quit/ Let me finish what I got/ After all this stuff sure costs a lot"), ecstatic ("Still as crazy as a loon/ Even though I don't run out and cop a spoon") and - the killer final touch - just a little opaque ("You could have oil wells in your own back yard").


 Plenty of songs speak eloquently about the whys and wherefores of addiction; plenty of songs accurately recreate the sensation of drug-related enlightenment. In Your Own Back Yard, uniquely, does both.Was Spector chemically enhanced during the creation of the album? "Phil's a wild guy. But we're all a little crazy," says Dion, noncommittally.


 There is nothing more rancid than a "celebrity guest" album, but Born to Be with You is one of those rare works, such as the Rolling Stones's Exile on Main Street, whose mood and texture is enhanced by the sensation it conveys of a crowd of rock glitterati rubbing shoulders. "I remember Cher and Sonny Bono and Bruce Springsteen popping in," says Dion. "Those sessions had 10 guitar players and two drummers and two bassists and two vibe players. And there were more people in the control room than there were in the studio. That's Phil's way of doing things: very big and very demonstrative.


 "I know how it works - there has to be a captain. Phil and I did have a few conversations, though." Conversations? Dion backtracks slightly: "Well, we didn't exactly fall out. No - I have to say, I had a ball working with Phil." He sketches around the odd wild night in the studio - "One night Phil's bodyguard George collapsed with a heart-attack. We all rushed over to the hospital, and Phil grabbed a bag of money and asked for the best treatment he could possibly get," but is reluctant to elaborate.


 The friction on Born to Be with You seems to come from intimate (Dion's singing) versus monolithic (Spector's wall-of-sound production, more like a sumptuous curtain of sound here), instinctive versus extravagant, sober versus debauched. This may, or may not, be the sound of a man of deep inner peace and faith singing to a room full of cooing hedonists - but it sounds like it.


 The swirling, psychedelic gospel of (He's Got) The Whole World in His Hands is a bizarre slow-motion argument between Dion and the invisible, bloated demons of Seventies rock indulgence. "So you say he ain't got/ The world in his hands?" asks Dion. You don't actually hear blasphemous voices arguing back, but they're palpably there.


 I tell Dion that his singing has never been better. "Well, I'll take the compliment," he says, sounding as if he's doing anything but. "But when we were recording [the title song] Born to Be with You, Phil said, 'Get out there and run something, we'll see what we can do.' I ran through it, and he kept it - as the final version! I said, 'Phil, I was just doing a sketch.' "


 Dion knows that Born to Be with You is the favourite-ever album of the Who's Pete Townshend. But does he know that Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream loves it too? Is he aware that the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and Spiritualized - modern artists whose epic vision, part in the past, part in the future, part in space, has been called "other music" - are heavily influenced by it? No.


 It's almost as if he doesn't regard it as his album. Perhaps it's because the record was never released in America, following contractual wrangles between Spector and his record company. It is certainly an anomaly next to both his pre-1975 catalogue of intuitive, streetwise New Yoik rock'n'roll and his post-1975 descent towards his doo-wop roots via gospel and Christian music. Dion "found it" with Born to Be with You, but lost it too.


 Today, Dion wants to talk about religion, his daughters, The Wanderer - anything but Born to Be with You, basically. "This week, I had dinner with some dear friends and we talked about how we could be better at loving our wives," he tells me, apropos of nothing. "Life is great. I give thanks every day for being alive. We're all snowflakes, y'know."


 Fine. But then he really, really shocks and appalls me: he tells me that he likes the music of Alanis Morissette. Final confirmation, perhaps, that it was some higher power, and not Dion, who sang those songs after all.

 

in all the pish that seems to be this section - Joni Mitchell seems like a collosus amongst the tom waits and bowie crap ;)

DAY 340.
R.D. Burman/Bappi Lahiri...............................Shalimar/College Girl   (1975)












Hindi movies borrowed music from around the world, not only using Indian folk and classical music, but liberally stealing from Italian opera, German polka, Cuban rumba, Brazilian samba, be-bop and rock'n' roll..


"Shalimar" is only available on CD with the soundtrack to "College Girls," an equally remarkable score by Bollywood's faintly ridiculous "king of disco" Bappi Lahiri, Western listeners could have some fun spotting the sources.


This boy is certainly covering a broad spectrum of World music/shite, but who knows?

Been out the loop recently, looks like I haven't missed much . Mostly been US stuff, rarely my taste.