Some Nice choices on the page before, my people!!!

Today...Thin LIzzy

I've been thinking how to describe Thin Lizzy.
It's rather difficult. Best description I can give is Thin LIzzy was like an over the top Soap Opera with a rotating Cast of players.

A number of talented guitarists played in this band as well as a couple of drummers and keyboardists but with only one bassist. That should probably suggest why the rotating crew. And then of course, the drug usage. Huge. Lots of people in rehab or missing concerts or recording time, and one famous death. It's always sad, but at some point, they chose and refused to get off the road they were on.

Jailbreak , from 1975, brought them international Stardom, and they toured as the openers for some of the biggest names in Rockdom.
It was an interesting time for Rock n Roll. Drugs had almost destroyed Jazz, and now it was pretty much gutting rock bands. A lot of performers from a lot of bands were walking off stage to "never" return right in the middle of a concert or right after the show ended. It was so much so, it was no longer shocking. The large amount of vomit everywhere was one of the reasons I cut way back on going to concerts. Wild Times, my Brothers.

But, enough of that. Let's listen to what they preserved and left behind:
Jailbreak -  1975

1  Jailbreak
2  Angel from the Coast
3  Running Back
4  Romeo and the Lonely Girl
5  Warriors

1  The Boys Are Back In Town
2  Fight or Fall
3  Cowboy Song
4  Emerald



Added Bonus from 1972's Shades of A Blue Orphange, please allow me to present...
"Whiskey in the Jar"
The early period of Thin Lizzy was a bunch of Irish folk music played by a rock band such as "Whiskey in the Jar." "Danny Boy" was another one they would play live. what original material they did was mainly about Phil Lynott's description of the life and times and his reactions to HIS life.
If it wasn't for the Jailbreak album, and a broadening of material, Thin Lizzy might have only ever been something very similar to those "art house" type bands that were pretty popular back in the 1990s. "Mazzy Star" without chicks, not that's there's anything bad about Mazzy Star, it's just that they don't Rock, but we do.

Coe was the outlaw for real in those mid-70s Outlaw Days.

I have never been able to tolerate Tin Lizzy, even for a minute.  Just grates on me.

Not the only one
will there be any in heaven




I like to sleep late in the morning

Thanks for dropping me back into the 70's teenage rabbit hole with my coffee.  Have something live.  

Live you say? . . . .

Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, Ian Dury

This was played a fair amount when released but i haven't heard it in years. Hope you all enjoy it, most of you youngsters probably never heard this.

Saw these guys live in Memphis, 1976, when I was going through Navy 'A' school in Millington, TN.

I still say that Ian Drury is the Father of Rap and that a lot of people copied his delivery style.

I have a few items to post to clean up some folders.

First, let's start with some Dutch bands that weren't Golden Earing or Focus!!!  We did a couple of bands from Belgium a bunch of pages back. You may recall from Radio or now movies "Ca Plane Pour Moi."  We'll here some songs that were huge Internationally, and I can't explain it as compared to the rest of the artists Catalog. Let's Go!!!
Shocking Blue: Venus
Mouth & MacNeal: How Do You Do
Then, last but not least is The Tee Set with "My Belle Amie"

All of those songs are anomalies compared to the bulk of their recorded music. It's like their back catalogs are real Peee-Uuuuu Fests. Observe! Another The Tee Set song from their catalog: She Likes Weeds (before you guys get excited, it's a take-off on two lines from the movie "Funeral In Berllin," and before you get excited about that,the song's got nothing to do with the movie.)

First thing to say is...no wonder the Germans tear up the Benelux on their way to France so often!!!! Wow!!!!
Second, I stumbled over a pretty damn good song that was so out of place for them: I'm About to Lose My Mind

I came to find out that this song was released a few years after the band broke up. One, it's another example of a record label and band management picking the meat of the bones of the carcass one more time, and two, who knows what these guys may have been if they were allowed to experiment a little bit?? Wait til I tell you the Story about Ram Jam and "Black Betty," or Bad Finger's career.

Last thing to share today is Gary Wright.

I don't know how many of you have heard of him, but what he achieved was greater than his Celebrity.
If you've ever listened to Spooky Tooth, then you know his music. He was the only American in an English band, and he became a musician's musician. The Two songs we do today came from his second attempt at a solo career. What separated him this attempt was his band was 4 to 5 keyboardists, one drummer, and the occasional guitar players.
Also, in my part of CA, the SF Bay Area, his music was played on KSOL (yes, that is what you're thinking it is), Jazz stations like KRE, and Rock Stations like KOME, KSJO, KMEL, KSAN, plus don't forget about KFAT and KPIG!! For a few months, you couldn't hide from the music.
Dream Weaver:

Funny thing was, the guy just wanted to write, play and sing, but had to be the front man to get his music out there.

That's all I got for Today. Go away Now!

Good stuff!

"happy v-day"







Attached File

I never thought of it that way or any other way but I see what you mean. He could be Grandpa Freestyle.

LOL

You should've went for the "mic drop."

So for Today! we have two bands that got screwed out of royalties for some really great Music. I guarantee you know these songs, at the hits, and love them!!!!

First up is  a group out of New York called Ram Jam.

They had a huge hit that is still popular today back in '77 or '78, and they don't receive a penny for it. At all. Zip. Nada. Bumpkis.

"Black Betty" from Ram Jam - 1977:


The original song "Black Betty" was literally stolen by Huddie Ledbetter AKA Led Belly. Stolen might be too strong a word. Way back somewhere in these hallowed pages, a near genius wrote about recording "blues" music in the 1920s, Whom ever got there first, got copy right protection for the song (unless he signed it over to the guys doing the recording.) It also standardized the Blues, and everyone could play the same song in pretty much the same way. So, Huddie Ledbetter got there first. It was a one verse song that lasted roughly 54 seconds of music.

Flashing into the Future! we have Bill Bartlett, and English/American musician of some note reworking this song into the version we all know and love today. (I don't know much about Mr. Bartlett other than he was born in England, but was an American (somehow?), joined The Lemon Pipers and did song, "Green Tambourine."

A band was formed around the song, and an album was produced and released. Here's a small survey:
Ram Jam - 1977
Right on the Money
404
Overloaded


Then the Congress of Racial Equality and the NAACP sued the label and Bartlett, allegedly on behalf of Huddie Ledbetter's heirs, and they won the suit absolutely. Kind of mind blowing at the time, but today it's par for the course. Bartlett sort of disappeared. He may still be doing music somewhere which he was a pretty talented guy.

Ram Jam without Bartlett released a follow up album the next year trying to at least hype themselves on the popularity of the "Black Better," but it failed to chart.  New York rock bands have a tough time in the genre. Anthrax, Type O Negative should really be more popular than they are. When I think about the bands from this region, there have been a lot of highly skilled, very talented musicians out of the region, but they don't seem to be going anywhere until they mix up themselves with people out of the South or the West. Blue Oyster Cult is an exception in that they tell great stories. Vanilla Fudge is an exception in that it really is one of the greatest rock bands ever, and they just did cover songs.

I have a theory. The music tends to be pretty gritty, loud/boisterous and "in your face." Nuance is an unknown word. That tends to scare off people.

Here's a few songs from the second and last album they released, Portrait of the Artist As A Young Ram, 1978:
The Kid Next Door
Turnpike
Hurricane Ride

Next Up: Bad Finger: A Very Sad Tale

Hard to figure out where to start. For the TL:DR summation, very talented people were picked by the Beatles and Apple Records to do some music for a Movie called "The Magic Christian." (We can get a head nod for Raquel Welch who was also in the movie.)
They recorded a bunch of music, and a couple of songs were chosen for the movie. They also did a Paul McCartney song that became their first huge hit.

These guys all had huge egos which went along with their talent. So they had that going against them in time. Apple Records whent bankrupt, and sold off music catalogs to pay off company debts thus not allowing a lot of artists their royalty payments. Bad Fingers was off recording for Warner Brothers, and Warner Brothers and Apple records were battling out issues in the courts as well. It was a mess leading to two band members committing suicide and one dying from a brain bleed, IIRC. A Total Mess.

Let's celebrate the music!!!
Bad Finger

Magic Christian - 1970, but known as The Iveys
Come and Get It
Midnight Sun
Rock of All Ages
I'm in Love


No Dice - 1970
No Matter What
Without You = huge hit for Harry Nilsson and others; over 180 people have recorded this song. They should've made several fortunes over this one song alone.

Straight UP - 1971
Baby Blue
Suitcase
Day After Day

(Missing music from) Ass - 1973
Lawsuits

"Bad Finger" - 1974
Island
Matted Spam
Love Is Easy

Wish You Were Here - 1974
2 months of a public release; then a recall due to lawsuit.

The weirdest thing I encountered while trying to corral their music on youtube is that there are a shit ton of Bad Finger songs, but recorded by others entitled as Bad Finger. That's how you know a band got screwed out of its royalty money: musicians payed at union scale to pretend to be some other band. A Very Sad Tale

Oh boy they nailed it with the cable tv reference.

We were just another band.. out of Boston!

Let's talk about "the Fifth Beatle." Not Pete Best, the guy the actual Beatles called "the fifth Beatle." Here's a Hint


That was in the '60s. Billy Preston was the only outside musician to receive a credit on a composition or a recording, and the Beatles played with a lot of people on their later albums.
Billy Preston was also a very tortured soul. He was right up there with Marvin Gaye from a couple of pages ago. Let's start with the "Bad," so we can dispense with it, and then enjoy the music he left behind.
(As I'm recalling facts, please feel free to correct!) I guess we can start with, "he was a born a poor black child," and that actually begins his tale of woe. He grew up Fatherless, but his Mother cared for him as best she could. But, one of the side effects of having others know you're fatherless, is that some (we'll call them men for the sake of argument) some men will enter their lives, take up the role and then sexually abuse the kids. This happened to Billy Preston. I'm not certain, but the first man may have handed him off to another man. Unfortunately, Preston's Mother didn't or wouldn't/couldn't believe him.

Preston's professional career started in the early '60s. He became popular as a recording artist and very popular as a session musician. When he went off to Europe for a European tour, a lot of well-known Bands and artists wanted him on their record because they wanted an authentic American playing and Authentic Hammond B-3, and Preston was likeable plus very talented and skilled. In the '70s, besides his solo career, he was most associated with The Rolling Stones.

Preston is described as a very religious man who tolerated the secularism around him. I'm paraphrasing there. He wrote a lot of religious themed songs. I would say that about 20% to 25% of every album were religious themed songs.

But I would characterize more as a desperate man trying to hold onto control of his Life before it was too late. He was a cocaine addict; which means that whenever a failure occurred in his Life, he turned to cocaine and his religious beliefs to get him through it. But, as we all know, you can't serve two masters.

I'm not sure how many Sly Stone fans we have here, but you might recall a filmed live performance at Madison Square Garden in '72(?), how about circa 1972, where Sly got married on Stage. That was a legit marriage ceremony. The Woman he married was Billy Preston's Fiance. Billy walked in on them when they were having sex. It devastated Billy to a point where he no longer believed he could trust women, so he led a secret life that many in the Black community call "on the down low." (Preston became an exclusive closeted homosexual.) That and cocaine.

In the late '70s, Preston left A&M Records and signed with Motown in LA, and if you know what Motown's cocaine policies were, then Billy was heading down. He and his music became less popular, and by the '90s he was doing prison time for assault with a deadly weapon, fire insurance fraud, some sundry drug charges(, but he had sexual assault on a minor charge dismissed.) He sobered up, though and ran the Prison Church's Choir. Preston died in 2006 due to Kidney failure, but before that he would have one act of redemption to do. His good friend, George Harrison, who produced and was a song writing partner for a little bit with Preston, died of Cancer. Preston was part of the all-star band that performed the music for "The Concert for George." That's the bad stuff. Let's get to the good stuff.

Billy Preston was one hell of a keyboardist. And for being a proponent of radio friendly pop music, he certainly could do Gospel, funk and rock as well. Oddly enough, his use of outlandish chord choices and progressions would have also given him "entre" into the Jazz World. (I just wish he focused on the B-3 in his '70s music!)

We're going to do the music two parts because I have another computer I need to fix that took me a week just to get it to boot. (I hate computers.)
Part 1
Encouraging Words - 1970
Right Now
Let The Music Play
Sing One For The Lord
I Don't Want You To Pretend
Encouraging Words




(I got to stop this one here as I think I goofed up.)

ETA: Hey!!! the videos have titles!!!!! Subnet! You magnificent Bastard!!!!

I Wrote A Simple Song - 1971
John Henry
Without A Song
The Bus
God Is Great


We're Gonna Make It - 1972
I Wonder                              - seems to be very autobiographical
Will It Go Round In Circles
God Loves You                    - and it's Lent, you pagans!
Heart Full Of Sorrow
Slaughter

Tomorrow we'll finish with Part II up to the point the Billy Preston's wheels start to come off.

hbilly's post above is a very good way to spend 19 minutes!

Today, we finish with Part II of Billy Preston. There was a lot of good to him despite the bad from bad choices, and he really was an excellent musician, composer, lyricist. I'm pretty certain that these are his last A&M albums before he went to Motown. You can detect a difference in the music when you listen to the whole of the albums. (We're just doing excerpts for most of them.)

You'll notice that the music is repeating itself meaning the songs are beginning to sound the same. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Everybody Likes Some Kind of Music - 1973 - a very eclectic album with songs in different styles of music
Everybody Likes Some Kind of Music
My Soul Is A Witness
Space Race
Do You Love Me? - he was also working with the Rolling Stones on the Black and Blue album; this was the basis for the Stone song "Melody"
I'm So Tired
It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan song. Covers of Bob Dylan songs sound so much better to me.


The Kids and Me - 1974
Nothing from Nothing
Struttin'
You Are So Beautiful  - Written for Preston's Mother. Joe Cocker got a second chance at Life with this song.
St. Elmo

It's My Pleasure - 1975 - Cocaine: it's a hell of a drug. We should ask Rick James about it. Oh wait...we can't. There's isn't a song on this album that's slower than 100 bpm.

Side 1
1  Fancy Lady
2  Found the Love
3  That's Life
4  Do It While You Can


Side 2
1  It's My Pleasure
2  Song of Joy
3  I Can't Stand It
4  All of My LIfe

R.I.P. Gary

Double tap. No apologies.

https://bestclassicbands.com/gary-rossington-obituary-lynyrd-skynyrd-3-5-23/

Got some catching up to do!!!

Today is Uriah Heep Day!!

So, the first question I always ask myself is "how do I describe" a band, artist or producer to some one. I try to answer that in what's generally understood as the typical definitions used by the audience at large.

Uriah is, or doesn't fit the mold. When we did Ambrosia, they purposefully tried to make each album different from each other. With Uriah Heep, things just came out that way depending on who was in the Band at the time. On the other hand, they did wanted to be distinct from other contemporary bands as a "mission statement," and they certainly achieved that. We'll be doing two albums today, one before my Doctor's appointment, and one after. These albums followed each other, in their discography, by about 7 months, I think.

First up is Look at Yourself.

Look At Yourself - 1971
Side 1
1  Look At Yourself
2  I Wanna Be Free
3  July Morning - Interesting Story here Gents! It started a Tradition in Bulgaria on the Black Sea side. Of course the very humane peace-loving government of Bulgaria investigated very thoroughly, and after the specified number of friendly detentions and interrogations were conducted, the conclusion of the report was that it was acceptable socialist behavior for the peace-loving, but still revolutionary, peoples of Bulgaria to go outside and watch the Sunrise during the month of July. And let me apologize for the Video. Putting together videos for these guys was mostly a failed search to find the accurate recordings.

Look At Yourself - 1971
Side 2
1  Tears In my Eyes
2  Shadows of Grief
3  What Should Be Done
4  Love Machine

Part 2 of Uriah Heep!!!

Demons and Wizards. It's a whole different thing from the previous album. Entirely different. The lead singer's singing style is the only continuity between the two albums. This album is also the album that would start changes from album to album until the late '80s. The reasons were similar for most bands of the era: drugs, debt, infighting, egos, deaths, managers ripping bands off, labels going bankrupt. Uriah Heep experienced all of this and more. These two albums are really very good in spite of it all. Even with personnel changes, the musicianship is becoming more professional, so whey they hit the stage, they sound pretty good consistently. And that's how you get invited on tours!!

Uriah Heep
Demons and Wizards - 1972
Side 1
1  The Wizard
2  Traveler in Time
3  Easy Livin'
4  Poet's Justice
5  Circle of Hands

Side 2
1  Rainbow Demon
2  All My Life
3  Paradise
4  The Spell

Then the last thing to mention is how much their lyrical ideas and styling improved with the more they did.

This first song is from Salisbury which precedes our two highlighted albums. It's titled, "Lady in Black," and it's pretty much a word salad that makes Kamala look like Disraeli in comparison. The song was a huge European hit where most people don't speak English as their primary language. You can get away with story lines that don't make sense, or lines that go off into the distance to never return. Here, you can't pull that shit. And sorry about the video. I'm not certain what language is represented by the Cyrillic alphabet either. I don't see how it can follow the lyrics as some parts make no sense. But still, huge hit!!!!!


Last we have "Stealin'" from Sweet Freedom which finishes off as the other book end to our chosen albums.
Good story with a message about the choices one makes.

Rocky Mountain Way, assholes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFEpllJLRbI