I’m not the biggest fan of Emerson Lake & Palmer or Prog Rock in general — the genre’s artistic pretensions and musical self indulgences simply haven’t aged very well — but this song of theirs has been bouncing around my head since it popped up on an oldies Pandora station of mine (and, of course, once you thumb something up in Pandora you’re likely to hear it again a lot).
A highlight of 1972’s Trilogy, “From the Beginning,” like “Still… You turn Me On”from the following year’s Brain Salad Surgery or “Lucky Man” from their eponymous debut, is one of those nicely melodic Greg Lake compositions that gave ELP some radio presence in the ’70s amidst their usual decidedly non-single length, over-the-top synth workouts and artfully deranged takes on classical standards. It’s almost got a bossa nova feel in the way it subtly swings and seduces. And Lake’s vocals feature his usual appealingly masculine timbre and restrained romanticism. I think because ELP were such a instrument-driven band Lake doesn’t really get the credit he deserves as a very solid Rock vocalist. But his pleasantly refined charms as a singer are all on fine display here.
The only thing distinguishing “From the Beginning” from, say, a Classics IV song like “Spooky,” which it kind of resembles if we’re being honest, is Keith Emerson’s well deployed Moog synthesizer solo which floats in during the last minute of the tune. It hovers above Lake’s acoustic guitar and overdubbed bass and Carl Palmer’s loose but anchoring conga beat and is actually a very restrained and effective use of the then-new gadget. Fading out into some seagull-like peals, it supplies the song with an otherworldly and haunting hook that leaves the listener wanting more. The bright synth also brands “From the Beginning” as a definitively Emerson Lake & Palmer song even if the simplicity and straightforwardness of its composition, not to mention its relatively compact 4-minute run time, is not all that characteristic of the normally bombastic Prog Rock outfit’s usual baroquely expansive output. That makes “From the Beginning” something like the exception that proves the rule for ELP and a damned tuneful one at that.
If you’re a classic Rock fan with a particular interest in the 1960s like me then Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman’s Visonary Record Label by Mick Houghton is a must read piece of music history. As its long subtitle proclaims, Becoming Elektra is both a biography of legendary music executive Jac Holzman and also a testament to Elektra Records’ uniquely eclectic and pervasive impact on the popular music of the baby boomer generation. Houghton traces Holzman’s pioneering technical efforts and prescient eye for talent with admirable thoroughness from the Folk boom of the 1950s and early ’60s to the LA-based psychedelic Rock explosion of the late ’60s to the Soft Rock adult contemporary acts that came to dominate radio in the ’70s.
Most famous for signing The Doors, Holzman’s legacy is much more than that admittedly awesome feat. He comes across as a fascinating and driven guy with an unusually compassionate feeling for his artists, as well as something of a technical visionary and studio perfectionist with a super wide range of musical tastes. A native New Yorker from a reasonably prosperous family, Holzman returned to the city determined to make his mark in music after precociously forming Elektra while still in college. Like so many of his generation he found that the action was happening downtown in Greenwich Village, where he opened a record store in 1951 with a small recording studio in the back. Holzman’s soon realized that the sound on the records for the folk performers of the time was nothing like the richness of their live performances. So Holzman abandoned selling records and focused on seeking out unique new talents and then recording them to their best possible advantage. That became the Elektra signature throughout his years running the label.
The list of artists that Holzman corralled is nothing short of astonishing. In the folk era it included Village stalwarts like Jean Ritchie, Phil Ochs, Judy Henske, Fed Neil, Tom Paxton and Tom Rush, as well as reviving the career of Blues pioneer Josh White and discovering a young Coloradan with a big voice named Judy Collins. Continue reading →
It’s hard to believe there hasn’t been a comprehensive Eric Clapton biographical documentary until now. The legendary British guitarist has been a major part of the Rock firmament for well over 50 years yet we had to wait until 2017 before we got a full cinematic retrospective of Clapton’s rather amazing life and career. Thankfully, Lili Fini Zanuck’s Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars does its mythical subject justice, all the more so by humanizing the diffident guitar genius by delving into his troubled childhood and deep emotional troughs along with chronicling Slowhand’s blazing musical achievements.
Clocking in at a fairly long 2 hours, 13 minutes, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars is definitely a conventional documentary and nothing groundbreaking in and of itself, tracing Clapton’s life in chronological fashion from his middle class upbringing in postwar Ripley, England, through his rise to superstardom and to the modern day. Thankfully, its exhaustive nature is much more illuminating than tedious, at least to a lifelong fan like myself. Clapton has always been a somewhat elusive character, both omnipresent in Rock culture and yet a bit opaque with a tendency to recede for long periods of time. Life in 12 Bars does an excellent job of filling in the major mysteries of his rather dramatic life.
Chief among them is the fact that Clapton found out at around age 9 that the woman he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother and that his real mother had abandoned him and fled to Canada after a brief war time fling led to his conception. This primal abandonment and subsequent rejection by his biological mother during his youth and adolescence — she had started an entirely new family in the following years — led to profound psychological scars, as well as intimacy issues. As so often is the case with a genius, though, this trauma also led to amazing artistic breakthroughs. After becoming obsessed with American Blues and R&B as a teenager, young Eric took to the guitar like a fish to water.
After flirting with graphic art at college, Clapton joined his first real band in 1962 at the age of 17. By 1963 he was in the Yardbirds as they starting their amazing run of Blues-inflected British pop, becoming one of the stalwarts of the British Invasion and one of its key innovators. Clapton left the Yardbirds in ’65 when he felt they were straying too far from their Blues roots for his liking, joining the more traditionalist John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. While fruitful for Clapton’s evolution as a modern Blues guitar master, the relationship was short-lived and by late 1966 Clapton had teamed up with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist/voclaist Jack Bruce to form the ultimate power trio, Cream.
Cream, one of the earliest so-called “supergroups,” slowly built into a monstrously successful act, particularly once they crossed the Atlantic and began a string of mythical live shows in New York, San Francisco and across the United States. Clapton was also inspired by the emergence of another guitar legend upon the scene, Jimi Hendrix, perhaps the only true rival to Clapton in terms of pure technique (with apologies to Jimmy Page). This period was undoubtedly the high point of Clapton’s 1960s career, with both critical accolades and commercial success through his highly influential work as part of Cream, which for good or ill laid the groundwork for both Heavy Metal and the hard-edged Blooze music to come in the early 70s by bands like Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, et al.
However, all was not well in the band despite their massive success. Relentless touring and the deteriorating toxic relationship between Bruce and Baker led to a permanent rupture, with the band releasing their final album, the aptly named Goodbye, in 1970. After that, Clapton was off to the short-lived Blind Faith (“Cant Find My Way Home”), Delaney and Bonnie and Friends (“Let It Rain,” “After Midnight”) and as a super session man on all-time classics like George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” and “Go Back Home” by Stephen Stills, among many others.
The next key development for Clapton was the formation of Derek and the Dominos. The material for for their first album came largely from Clapton’s obsessive infatuation with George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. Despite the fact that Harrison was probably Clapton’s closest friend he pursued Boyd and essentially recorded Layla and Other Love Songs in an attempt to woo her away from the quiet Beatle. The title track and “Bellbottom Blues” were particularly raw expressions of unrequited love, as well as stone classics, and the whole double album is a remarkable artistic achievement that also featured key contributions from Duane Allman, a vital catalyst after Clapton and the Dominos suffered major creative blocks.
Bizarrely, despite its undeniable greatness the album failed in America due to the confusing pseudonym chosen for the band. Even more ominously, Derek and the Dominos proved to be a final zenith for the seemingly unstoppable Clapton for some time, as tragic events conspired to send him into a drug-fueled tailspin. First came the death of his guitar rival/soulmate Hendrix in September, 1970, shortly after the band had recorded a version of “Little Wing” as a tribute. By October, 1971 Duane Allman was also dead in a motorcycle accident (this fact is inexcplicably left out of 12 Bars). Perhaps worst of all, despite the passion of Layla, Pattie Boyd chose to remain with Harrison for the time being, adding to Clapton’s sense of hopeless desperation. After leading from the ramparts of the 1960s Rock revolution with ever-increasing influence, popularity and creative innovation, Clapton would drop out and spend the first several years of the 1970s as a heroin-addled hermit.
Of course, this is really only the first part of both the documentary and Clapton’s life story, albeit the most important and dynamic section of the film. 12 Bars goes on to recount Clapton’s struggles with both heroin and alcohol, his epically erratic comeback to live performance, his eventual rather hollow winning of Pattie Boyd as his wife (it didn’t last) and the tragic death of his young son Connor to a fall out the window of a New York skyscraper in 1991. I’m probably in the minority but there are a bit too many rather morbid home movies of his son set to “Tears In Heaven” for my taste after the scope of the loss has already been well established — and with the same images already seen immediately prior. No doubt this absolutely horrible loss was a key event in Clapton’s later life and a major turning point in his sobriety — not to mention the resulting song a massive hit for E.C and a ubiquitous Grammy-winning Unplugged performance. But it still seems like this section is padded out and the tragedy exploited in a somewhat unseemly and facile music video fashion.
Nevertheless, while it has its flaws Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars is a must-view for any serious Clapton fan and really anyone interested in the history of Rock ‘n Roll in general, particularly the lighting-fast developments of the British music scene in the 1960s. Along with the breadth of sorrows that the film lays bare in the man and his Herculean struggles to overcome them, which were only vaguely known by the general public, the documentary also makes clear by sheer accumulation the true scope of Slowhand’s importance. When dwelling on his solo output it has often been fashionable for Rock critics to render a verdict on Clapton’s work as somewhat disappointing, a bit of a Rock underachiever. But that narrow view fails to take into account the fevered vibrancy of his earlier work and the unsustainability of that pace, not to mention the multitude of his collaborations as a sideman and the undeniable quality of much of his later work in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and until the present day, even if what came after The Yardbirds, Cream and Derek and the Dominos was not quite as revelatory.
I think most of all what comes across is just how young Clapton was when he achieved immortality. By the time Layla was released in 1970 Clapton was all of 25 years old. It’s really no surprise then that he had not yet come to terms with his childhood emotional damage and was still somewhat stunted as a person even if he had already achieved world-conquering global stardom. The fact that he survived the perils of fame and his addictions to keep on recording great music and lived to become one of the grand old men of Rock at the current age of 72 is probably also just as remarkable considering the fate of so many of his contemporaries. In fact, Life in 12 Bars leads to one inescapable conclusion through its excellent exploration of a life literally defined by Rock and the Blues: Eric Clapton may not be God but he is somewhat surprisingly, based on his longevity, his collaborators and the overall quality of his output, the most important guitarist in the history of Rock ‘n Roll.
First things first, let me just say that I am not a very big Duran Duran fan. I always found their big hits “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Girls on Film” and “Rio” sort of overly bombastic and crude with Simon Le Bon’s vocal stylings lacking in nuance and modulation, almost but not quite shout-singing. And the lyrics are, frankly, dumb. If their MTV-fueled success was groundbreaking for the music video era and helped usher in the New Romantic movement here in the States — they were nicknamed the “Fab Five” at one point, for gods’ sakes — well, I have to say I much prefer the music of non-New Romantics like the Cure, The Smiths, Big Country, Echo & The Bunnymen and New Order, to name but a few of their contemporaries. Also there’s just something so time-specific about Duran Duran, from their very pretty ur-80s fashion sense to the Patrick Nagel cover art, that you can practically smell the Drakkar Noir wafting off their videos.
That said you’ve got to give the devil his due. Duran Duran did make extremely catchy singles and once in a while they could come up with a real beauty. Such is the case with the stunning “Come Undone” from 1993, quite late in their heyday.
One of the standout tracks along with “Ordinary World” from the band’s major comeback effort, The Wedding Album, “Come Undone” features gorgeous production, sinuous hooks and sophisticatedly mysterious lyrics. Le Bon’s vocal effort is also much improved 10 years on as he embraces an appealing Bryan Ferry by way of Micheal Hutchence croon. In fact the whole song does resemble one of INXS’s moodier ballads with the angular edges sanded off. Add to that a bevy of typically seductive Duran Duran hooks like a desperately sexy, helium voiced female vocal (“Can’t ever keep from falling apart at the seams”) replying to Le Bon’s darkly charged overtures (“Blow me into cry” indeed) and a well done arty video in an aquarium with crossdressing appeal and you come up with a Duran Duran hit that even a hater like me can love. And play on repeat, for that matter.
The untimely death of the great Tom Petty a few weeks ago forces us to look back in wonder at his amazing career and his frankly unbelievable trove of fantastic songs. There are very few American artists in any popular song-making genre who were able to sustain such a prodigiously satisfying output while also experimenting within what was ultimately a singularly unique personal style. Dylan, of course, and probably Springsteen and Paul Simon. But after that I’m at a loss.
Love Is A Long Road
“Love Is A Long Road” is a sterling example of Petty remaining true to his earliest rock instincts even while pursuing new artistic directions. Off of his first solo album, 1989’s Full Moon Fever, and relased at the height of his collaboration with his Traveling Willbury’s bandmate, Jeff Lynne, the song is a standout among such blockbuster hits as “Free Fallin’,”“Running Down A Dream” and “I Won’t Back Down” precisely because it doesn’t resemble them. Rather, it’s classic Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, less slick and more emotional than those other chart toppers. You can draw a straight line from earlier dark horse standouts like “A Woman In Love (It’s Not Me)” and “Straight Into Darkness” right to “Long Road” and clearly see its intense similarity by way of raw emotion and well-constructed gritty rock dynamics. It’s also a wonderful showcase for Petty’s uniquely evocative voice and it’s no wonder it remained an Easter Egg-like staple in his live arsenal even though the song never charted.
We here at Man’s Fine Life are deeply saddened by the untimely passing of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty at the age of 66 after a cardiac arrest at his LA home on October 2. The Rolling Stone obituary is here.
Tom Petty was one of the best of the straight-ahead American rock ‘n rollers to come out of the 1970s, arguably forming a triumvirate with Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger that spearheaded a rebirth of singer-songwriter rock with a gritty edge characterized by narrative lyrics about the common man and impeccably crafted tunes played by top notch bands. It’s easy to forget just what that meant at a time when it looked like conventional blues-based rock was on the wane due to the onslaught of Disco, Heavy Metal, Wus Rock (Firefall, Dan Fogelberg, Bread, et al) and Punk. But like Springsteen and the E Street Band and Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recaptured traditional fans of rock and made legions of new ones with whole albums full of catchy singles suffused with the passion of the true believer in the redemptive power of Rock.
Petty and the Heartbreakers started off with a bang way back in 1976 when they had Top 40 hit with the sinuously assertive “Breakdown” and a very influential non-hit with the Byrds-inflected “American Girl” on their eponymous debut album (legend has it that people were calling up Roger McGuinn to see if it was his new single). With Petty’s oddly effecting trademark nasal delivery and 12-string Rickenbacker, Mike Campbell’s stinging lead guitar, Benmont Tench’s pivotal swirling organ adding uncommon depth and the rock solid rhythm section of the late Howie Epstein on bass and Stan Lynch on drums, the original lineup seemed to emerge as a finely tuned outfit from day one and never took their foot off the gas for the next few years. Their consistently excellent efforts culminated in one of the decade’s best albums, Damn the Torpedoes, in 1979. With such all-time classic as “Refugee,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Breakdown,” Torpedoes was an artistic and commercial smash, going 3-times platinum with over three million in sales.
The band entered the 80s with two more fine releases — Hard Promises (1981) and Long AfterDark (1982)– that, while not as successful as Torpedoes, still solidified their rep as major hit makers and one of the most important acts around. Then came Southern Accents in 1983. A beautiful album with a very troubled recording process — Petty broke his hand badly punching a wall in frustration during the mix of the lead single “Rebels” — Southern Accents was originally conceived as something of a concept album by way of an exploration Petty’s “red neck” Florida roots. Other than a general thematic similarity the songs on Accents do not quite add up to a concept album, perhaps because it was trimmed down from a double LP. But it is beautifully produced, significant for its lyrical ambitions and ultimately lovely and artistically satisfying. It hit platinum and so was also successful commercially. But Petty considered it a noble failure and for him the album never quite lived up to the magnum opus that he had in his head when he conceived it.
Southern Accents and the strains of making it marked a true turning point and after that Petty and the band changed subtly but significantly, as if the reach for something grander and more profound had led instead to a sort of artistic burnout. After Petty’s rehab and recuperation from his self-inflicted wound, as well as drug issues which would continue to plague him in the years to come, the music became much simpler and more stripped down if no less radio friendly. On the full band’s Let Me UP (I’ve Had Enough) (1987) and Into the Great Wide Open(1991), as well as Petty’s smash solo album Full Moon Fever (1989), the narratives became more detached, the characters observed from a distance for the most part rather than from within their skins as had been the case on the band’s earlier material. The songs seem more programmatic, more LA and less Gainesville, and frankly, from an artistic standpoint, less interesting. There’s a less nuanced, less bluesy feel overall that sacrificed some complexity for a more universal “rock” sound, which ironically hasn’t aged as well as the earlier hits. If it marked a return to the basic pleasures of the straight-ahead 3-minute single the updated style clearly seemed to abandon much of the passionate involvement of the earlier 1970s music.
His work with the enjoyably light supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, where he teamed up with other legends like Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison and ELO mastermind and super producer Jeff Lynne, to create one of the surprise hit albums of the late 1980s seemed to confirm that Petty was done taking things too seriously and suffering for his art. From here on out it would be all rock, no angst, jamming with friends, playing the hits live and just generally enjoying being one of the world’s most successful rock musicians. Petty evolved into a wryly funny wise old hand with hooded eyes and his trademark deadpan drawl, almost a different person from the strangely sharp featured, almost androgynous angry young rocker of the early days.
And who could blame him for that transition from hot blooded rebelliousness to satisfied professionalism? Taken in its entirety the music is still good and highly enjoyable in the later 80s and 90s. But that earlier stuff is where the magic still shines and resonates in a timeless way. Those first 9 years were a remarkable run and stand up with the creative output of pretty much any Rock artist of any era over that kind of sustained period of time. Of course there are probably fans who fall into the other camp and prefer the later, lighter stuff. But for me I’ll take the music up to and including Southern Accents as peak Petty. It’s the music I grew up with and the music I still reach for and play with pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETHdszZQZDE
Personal preferences aside, one thing’s for sure — Tom Petty was a great rocker and well deserving of his Hall of Fame status. He was a music giant who will be sorely missed and the world is poorer for his passing. But the gift of his music lives on as one of the real high water marks in Rock & Roll because Petty was one of the genuine originals in a genre where that’s about as rare as hen’s teeth. Godspeed, Tom, and thanks for the terrific tunes.
I blame that damn Volkswagen commercial with the nice old Irish lady and her family. Or maybe it’s a hangover from a certain Vermont senator’s 2016 campaign. But Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” has been absolutely stuck in my head for weeks now. And so I’m going to inflict it on you, as well, in an attempt to exorcise it from my ear canal
Obviously it’s a gorgeous 1960s classic redolent of complex youthful emotions, lyrics that effortlessly paint a detailed and profoundly human mise en scène and lifted skyward by those patented soaring S&G harmonies. There’s even a very George Harrison-like guitar sound in there rendered instead by Larry Knechtel’s Hammond organ, as well as Hal Blaine’s thundering drums, giving what could otherwise be a straight forward folk ballad complexity, texture and heft. Essentially it’s a perfect single where the words seamlessly dovetail with the music — “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together” — and one that profoundly captures the troubled, fraying zeitgeist of 1968 America. I just hope that by finally posting it I’ll be rid of this masterpiece in my mind’s ear for a while. Sorry if it infects you in the process but it has to be done!
The sad and shocking news that Chris Cornell, founder and frontman of both Soundgarden and Audioslave and one of the most gifted rock vocalists of his generation, has died at the age of 52 is still reverberating around the music world. He was found dead in his hotel room in Detroit on May 17th while on tour with his re-formed original band, the great grunge pioneers from Seattle, an apparent suicide. Cornell’s loss as an individual and his loss to rock music as a whole is hard to fully process. Our sincere condolences go out to his family and friends.
Searching With My Good Eye Closed – Badmotorfinger (1991)
Unlike their local peers Nirvana and Pearl Jam, with whom they are most closely grouped, Soundgarden was less true “grunge” than an extension of classic 70s hard rock, albeit with sophisticated lyrical themes and innovative musical techniques. While initially satirizing the over-the-top nature of metal at the time they began in the late 80s — see “Big Dumb Sex” for the apotheosis of this in-your-face, on the nose send-up of hardcore metal misogyny — Soundgarden quickly graduated to a more lyrically complex, more darkly psychedelic metal sound that was uniquely their own. Their real breakthrough was Badmotorfinger, one of the seminal albums of the ’90s in any genre. A borderline concept album, Badmotorfinger was inestimably weird and powerful, featuring guitarist Kim Thayil’s patented Drop D tuning on several hard-hitting classics like “Jesus Christ Pose,” “Outshined,” the soaring & ominous “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” and the punishing and mystical “Room A Thousand Years Wide.” Another track from this awesome album, “Mind Riot,” seemed to point in the direction that Cornell and the band would take in future: hard-edged, certainly, but with an almost ballad-like emotional intensity and strikingly original lyrics of searching strangeness and loss.
I was crying from my eye teeth and bleeding from my soul
And I sharpened my wits on a dead man’s skull
I built an elevator from his bones
Had climb to the top floor just to stamp out the coals (I’ve been caught in a mind riot)
Candle’s burning yesterday
Somebody’s best friend died
I’ve been caught in a mind riot
Mind Riot – Badmotorfinger (1991)
After the explosion of Grunge as a distinct genre onto the national scene, fueled by their own success and that of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Screaming Trees among others, Soundgarden followed up Badmotorfinger with an even bigger hit, Superunknown. The new album was characterized by a subtle shift away from pure heavy metal and more emphasis on mystical guitar driven psychedelia. Propelled by the huge MTV hits “Black Hole Sun” and “Spoonman,” the album also featured other classics like the title track and the propulsive “My Wave.”
Superunknown – Superunknown (1994)
The band also honed their penchant for extreme pessimism with the beautiful downers “The Day I Tried To Live,” “Like Suicide” and the very heavy “Mailman” and “4th of July.” Continue reading →
This old Big Country song from their remarkable Steeltown album way back in 1984 has been going through my head on repeat to start 2017. The late, great Stuart Adamson certainly had a way with a socially conscience anthem.
Aside from the more charismatic elements of the subject it definitely reminds me of someone today. Can’t quite put my finger on it but it’ll come to me, I’m sure…
In the 1960s, AM pop radio was king. FM wasn’t wide spread or heavily commercialized yet — most car and portable radios didn’t even have Frequency Modulation — and the majority of FM’s content was talk and Jazz, with some avant garde college stations breaking new ground by playing true alternative music like the Velvet Undergorund. But if you wanted to hear the hits you’d hear them on AM. While it’s easy to think that only heavyweights like Cream, Hendrix, The Doors and The Byrds were getting all the airplay two of the biggest AM chart toppers of that pop friendly-era were The Grass Roots and The Rascals.
I’d Wait a Million Years – The Grass Roots
The Grass Roots were a prototypical LA band: a good looking and interchangeable bunch of non-threatening white guys who could write a little, play a little but mostly sing very well while letting professional session musicians handle the recording dates and a master producer and songwriting team create their “sound.” On vinyl they were often backed up by that famous group of anonymous studio aces, The Wrecking Crew. But unlike other truly ersatz acts like The Association and The Monkees, The Grass Roots could really Rock when called upon with the commitment that makes for great Blue-Eyed Soul and pop rock. Sure, their music was heavily produced and the band members wound up coming and going at a dizzying pace — their only real mainstay was bassist/singer Rob Grill who wound up owning the band’s name and kept the Grass Roots going until his death in 2011. But under their nod-and-a-wink hippy moniker and backed by the remarkable West Coast songwriting team of PF Sloan and Steve Barri (of “Secret Agent Man” fame) and that great ultra-pop producer/Svengali Lou Adler (Mammas & the Papas, Carole King) and his Dunhill Records label, the Grass Roots cranked out some the seminal hits of the 60s.
Foremost among them is the great “Let’s Live For Today”. Released in 1967 at the height of the Summer of Love, “Live for Today” seemed to capture the youth explosion at its most optimistic, literally proclaiming carpe diem in 2:47 of dramatically arranged, beautifully constructed near-perfection. If it wasn’t “A Day In the Life” or “Good Vibrations”, well, not much else was either and “Let’s Live For Today”s yearning, passionate optimism and chiming but slightly wobbly, almost Eastern guitar notes — not to mention that great shouted “1-2-3-4!” bridge — signaled generational change and renunciation of establishment expectations in the guise of a plaintive love song. It brought the band major success, charting at #8 and selling over a million copies, and it’s simply a great pop record redolent of 60s zeitgeist that still holds up very well.
Midnight Confessions – The Grass Roots
Though not an album band due to their somewhat manufactured, ad hoc structure the Grass Roots had another smash with the beautifully produced and well-arranged “Midnight Confessions,” a typical hopeless love song elevated to super-hooky greatness by a swirling Hammond organ, a walking bass line and some innovative time shifts by the percussion. It deservedly reached #5 on the pop charts late in 1968.
Temptation Eyes – The Grass Roots
1969 saw them score another big hit standing out from a lot of middling material with the intense “Wait a Million Years” and its through-line of insistent electronic beep, dramatic horns and propulsive rhythms. Amidst much band reshuffling the ‘Roots had one more really good song in them, 1970’s “Temptation Eyes”, a solid straight-ahead rocker that was definitely consistent with their overall sound and contribution to the Rock canon. While they’d have even more success with 1971’s “Sooner or Later” and “Two Divided By Love”, those songs are pretty weak sauce with an inescapably cloying Wonder Bread mushiness that does the band no credit. It’s no wonder that they soon petered out and onto the oldies circuit. But their best songs still hold up really well and are a pleasure to listen to. By definition a 60s band, The Grass Roots nevertheless seem prescient in predicting the pop direction of similar acts like The Raspberries, Three Dog Night and Atlanta Rhythm Section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mlj8nuJbNQ
The Rascals might be viewed as the mirror image of a band like the Grass Roots. Although they charted just as frequently on AM radio during the 60s and their music was also an integral part of the pop soundscape of the era, the Rascals (originally the Young Rascals) were not a West Coast studio creation at all, despite the excellent production and sophisticated arrangements of their best singles. The Rascals hailed from back east in New Jersey and were a real band with four longstanding members who wrote and performed their own material: Felix Caviellieri on keyboard and vocals, the band’s linchpin, Eddie Bregati on vocals and percussion, Gene Cornish on guitar and Dino Danelli on drums. With three of their members having already honed their chops in the band Joey Dee and the Starlighters, The Young Rascals came out of the shoot ready to rock with two reasonably successful hits, the pleasingly raw “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” (1965) and the propulsive, all-time great party anthem “Good Lovin'” (1966).
Good Lovin’ – The Young Rascals
Already the authenticity of the vocals and more rough-hewn, organic excellence of the musicianship declare that the Rascals are not going to be just another sweet sounding pop band with only one or two hits. With an attack owing more to garage bands like the Standells and The Outsiders than to the highly polished sheen of LA’s “West Coast Sound,” but also with more than a casual nod to the British Invasion, the Rascals made the case that East Coast Rock ‘n Roll would not go gently into that good, super-sweet AM radio night.
Which is not to say that the Rascals were radical or confrontational in any overt way. They weren’t musical revolutinaries like Love or social rabble rousers like Jefferson Airplane. But neither were they bubblegum pop. The Rascals were grittier Blue-Eyed Soul with an authentic, intuitive feel for a non-condescending, non-homogenized version of that sub-genre that so many other white acts just couldn’t match. They kept up the good work in 1967 with the Bacharach-like “How Can I be Sure” (covered to even better effect by Dusty Springfield for my money), the surprisingly soulful ode to love and good times, “Groovin'”, a #1 chart-topper, and its fraternal twin single, 1968’s “A Beautiful Morning.”
A Beautiful Morning – The Rascals
Those last two lush and ostensibly happy singles cleverly utilize hints of Latin percussion and feature Cavaliere’s wonderfully evocative, emotionally complex vocals, turning what could easily be pop tripe into something lasting, universal and great. The Rascals were also dedicated participants in their tumultuous times, taking a stand on racial segregation by not accepting bookings on segregated, all-white bills. And when Martin Kuther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated in 1968 it seemed only fitting that they’d be releasing a single that made the case for peace, tolerance and brotherhood, “People Got To Be Free.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sastKEBZhXY
The Rascals peaked early and wouldn’t last much into the 70s, failing to find chart success when they tried to be more ambitious than the 3-minute single and ventured into longer-form tracks incorporating psychedelia, Eastern philosophy and jazz fusion (though for true aficionados the later recordings are still worth a listen, as the musicianship is always excellent). Nonetheless, as a band that wrote & performed almost all of their own material, they were undoubtedly a more serious, substantial Rock band than The Grass Roots despite sharing a similar timeline of success, no argument. As if to prove the point, The Rascals were inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. But for pure listening pleasure, both The Rascals and The Grass Roots still deliver the thrills and hooks of a beautifully fresh pop sound that resonates all the way from the late 1960s to today, whether you’re listening via AM, FM or WiFi.
