40 Year Itch : Hollarin' Cussin', You Wanna Fight

[Purchase]

    

After knocking out soundtracks for two 1973 blaxploitation classics, Black Caesar and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, James Brown presented director Larry Cohen some new funk with tunes for a revenge thriller, a sequel to Hell Up in Harlem. That jive turkey Cohen turned him down, saying the songs sound like "the same old James Brown stuff". Maybe. But does it ever get much better than James Brown? In any case Brown had the last laugh when he released The Payback as a double album. The Payback needed all of two weeks to hit #1 on the Soul Charts. The first single was "Stoned to the Bone". The album version runs more than ten minutes as do three cuts on this funk fest which gives the JBs Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker plenty of room to burn.

    "Doing the Best I Can" changes the mood considerably. James Brown's eldest son Teddy had died in a car accident during the making of the album. This is the sound of a grieving father in torment.

Read More

From Ziggy Stardust to Cobbler Bob?

For everyone else on a Bowie binge...

Read More

40 Year Itch : Phil Everly "Invisible Man"

  In memory of Phil Everly, here's a track from his 1974 gem Phil's Diner, the cover of which was shot outside the much loved North Hollywood greasy spoon.

Read More

40 Year Itch: Airplane Wreckage

[Purchase]

Bummed out by Jefferson Airplane's break-up, neither RCA nor the fans of spin-off group Hot Tuna could get very excited by the latest album from guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady.  Phosphorescent Rat, released on January 4, 1974, never broke beyond #148 on the Billboard Album chart. It can be listened to as a transitional album from the acoustic blues of earlier efforts to the power trio that would emerge. I hear a little Dinosaur Jr on the track "Easy Now". 

                                       

   The following day, Grace Slick released Manhole, one of the most self-indulgent, drug and alcohol-fueled sets ever released in the 1970's and that's saying a lot. The 15 minute title track features Grace caterwauling over the backing of the London Symphony Orchestra.  I dare you to sit through the whole thing. But if you do, your reward is the best song on the album: "Come Again Toucan". All of the future members of Jefferson Starship perform on this album except Papa John Creach.

Read More

40 Year Itch : Bob Dylan Hits the Road

This event is the biggest of its kind in the history of show business

-David Geffen

On January 3 1974, at Chicago Stadium, Bob Dylan and The Band kicked off a 40 show, six week tour of the US. This would be Dylan's first time on the road since 1966. Though ticket prices were considered high at the time ( $8), all 658,000 were sold, generating a gross of about five million dollars.

Although they had rehearsed for weeks, Dylan decided to begin the first show with "Hero Blues", a tune they'd never played together. 

Throughout the show, the Band played furiously while Dylan barked out the lyrics. They sounded nothing like the band that had just recorded Planet Waves.

Robbie Robertson is quoted in Down the Highway:The Life of Bob Dylan

"Whenever we would so something in the studio it was like one group of musicians. When we played live the music got very dynamic and violent and explosive...When we got together to do the Tour '74 thing, the same thing happened again. We just automatically reverted to a certain attitude towards the songs...it's fast and aggressive and hard and tough."

We knew we were in the presence of greatness

-photographer Barry Feinstein

After years of domestic isolation, Dylan reasserted himself as a star. Crowds cheered and raised their lighters as one. It was the first time anyone had seen this at a concert and photographer Barry Feinstein captured the moment for the forthcoming live album Before the Flood.

Read More

40 Year Itch : Rolling Stone Takes Down the Dead

[Purchase]

On January 3 1974 Rolling Stone critic Jim Miller described the Grateful Dead as "professional amateurs" in his review of the band's Wake of the Flood. He said the album's lyrics "plumb new depths of dull-witted, inbred, blissed-out, hippy-dippyness". 

An example:
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world/
 but the heart has its beaches its homeland and thoughts of its own

     Of vocalists Jerry Garcia Bob Weir and Keith Godchaux, Miller wrote "those poor bastards still can barely sing" and described their voices as "generally sick, usually woozy, and often afflicted with perpetual head cold, twinges of sinus trouble, you name it".

Read More

40 Year Itch: Welcome to 1974!

            Welcome to 1974 kids! This is the year prog rock gave us three more great albums ( King Crimson's Red, Camel's Mirage and Genesis's Lamb Lies Down on Broadway); the year Patti Smith recorded her first single ("Hey Joe/Piss Factory"); the year The Ramones, Blondie, The Saints and Joe Strummer's 101ers and David Byrne's Artistics formed; the year of Court and Spark, Country Life, Sheet Music, On the Beach, and Taking Tiger Mountain ( By Strategy); the year King Crimson, Sparks, Queen, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison gave us- not one- but two great albums; the year of "Kung Fu Fighting", "Waterloo" "The Night Chicago Died" and two competing versions of "Billy Don't Be a Hero". I must let the show must go on!

Read More