Album Notes: the Mamas and the Papas' "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears"
For the week of May 21, 1966, the Mamas and the Papas debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, peaked at Number One on the Billboard 200. The group of New York folk vagabonds whose post-beatnik image and soaring harmonies bridged folk rock and imminent psychedelia had emerged from the "New Folk" movement of the late Fifties and early Sixties, delivering a seminal debut album with an unexpectedly controversial cover.
John Phillips had been a member of the Journeymen, a folk trio that also included Dick Weissmann and Scott McKenzie. (McKenzie would go on record a song of Phillips’, “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” that became a hit during the summer of 1967.) In a similar vein, Cass Elliot had been in the Big Three, while Denny Doherty belonged to the Halifax Three. Both Elliot and Doherty came together in the Mugwumps, which also included John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky, later of the ...
Remembering Robin Gibb
Robin Hugh Gibb was born on the Isle of Man on December 22, 1949. Robin was the fraternal twin brother of Maurice Gibb. In 1958, the Gibb family emigrated to Australia and settled in Brisbane. There, the twins, along with their older brother, Barry became known as the Bee Gees and found some success hosting a weekly television show. They released their first single in 1963, which reflected their trademark three-part harmony sound. Robin shared lead vocal duties with Barry, and the trio was heavily influenced by such English rock acts as the Beatles. The brothers collaborated in writing most of the group's original songs. Their first Australian hit came in 1966 ("Spicks and Specks"), and its success subsidized the family’s return to England in 1967. Over the next two years, the Bee Gees launched a string of hit singles executed in a brooding, distinctively British pop style. From this period came such well-crafted, harmony-rich songs as “New York ...
The Story of "Ohio"
In May 1970, Neil Young came to his bandmates David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills with a powerful new song: "Ohio." After three days of agitated student-led protests of the invasion of Cambodia, the already incendiary situation at Kent State University exploded on the afternoon of May 4, 1970, when 28 National Guardsmen fired as many as 67 shots into a crowd of people. The 13-second barrage killed four students – Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer – and injured nine more. In the wake of the tragedy, President Richard Nixon's military orders in Southeast Asia came under increasingly fervent scrutiny, while John Paul Filo's Pulitzer prize–winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming beside the lifeless body of Jeffrey Miller was forever ingrained into the American social consciousness as a poignant reminder of the domestic turmoil during the Vietnam Era. Other images from the shooting appeared as part of the May 15,1970 Life magazine cover story, an issue that reportedly found its way to Neil Young via David Crosby.
In the liner notes of his 1977 anthology, Decade, Young wrote: "It's still hard to believe I had to write this song. It's ...
Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll: "Tipitina"
If New Orleans music is a gumbo, pianist Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd – better known as Professor Longhair – is one of the chefs who filled the pot and lit the cooking fire. Variously hailed as “the Picasso of keyboard funk” and “the Bach of rock,” Byrd's syncopated music was as infectious as it was uncategorizable: his playing mixed blues, ragtime, zydeco, rhumba, mambo and calypso, while his hoarse singing voice cracked as it crept toward the high notes. A meandering recording career started in 1949 with two of his most popular songs, "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" and "She's Got No Hair," with the label crediting the tracks to "Longhair and his Shuffling Hungarians." A year later, under a different record company (Mercury) and using his real name (Roy Byrd & his Blues Jumpers), he rerecorded "She's Got No Hair" as "Bald Head," his first and only national R&B hit.
In 1953, while recording for Atlantic (his fourth label ...
Remembering Donald "Duck" Dunn
As one half of Booker T. and the MGs’ rhythm section, Donald "Duck" Dunn was house bass player at the legendary Stax label, where his artistry helped define one of the most distinctive and enduring sounds in popular music. Among the recordings for which Dunn laid down the bottom end: Otis Redding’s “Respect,” “Dock of the Bay” and “I've Been Loving You Too Long;” Wilson Pickett's “In the Midnight Hour” and Sam and Dave’s “Hold On I'm Coming” and “Soul Man.” He also played on sessions with such artists as Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis, to name but a few.
Born in Memphis on November 24, 1941, Dunn was given his nickname by his father as the two watched a Donald Duck cartoon on television. Although one of his grandfathers played fiddle, there was no music in Dunn’s immediate family. He recalled: "My father was a candy maker. He made peppermints and ...
Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll: "Piano Man"
Cold Spring Harbor, Billy Joel's debut solo album, failed to make a strong impression upon its release in 1971. Worse still, it was released with a curious mastering gaffe that sped up songs and altered the pitch of Joel's vocals. Frustrated and seeking a change in scenery, Long Island native Joel packed his bags for Los Angeles. There he took any and every gig he could find as a lounge singer/pianist (performing under the name Bill Martin). From these long L.A. nights of cigarette smoke and boozy requests, however, came the inspiration and images for "Piano Man" – the title track of Joel's 1973 album for Columbia Records and one of his signature songs. It stands as a classic of the Seventies singer/songwriter movement. Playing expressive piano, reaching into his upper vocal range, Joel rues his own failings while finding hope and even humor in his interactions with the bar's patrons and staff. An old ...
10 Essential Bob Seger Songs
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, Bob Seger is one of rock's most potent performers, insightful lyricists and admired vocalists. He was born Robert Clark Seger on May 6, 1945 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he cut his teeth – and first singles for local imprint Hideout – on the Motor City's rough and tumble scene. Seger lived the life of an archetypal rock and roll journeyman, recording such exceptional albums as 1970’s Mongrel while doggedly working the road. When Seger finally broke through, assuming a rightful place among such fellow travelers as the Eagles and Bruce Springsteen, it was sweet vindication for all the years spent in the shadows. Moreover, a string of multiplatinum albums – including Stranger in Town, Against the Wind, The Distance and Like a Rock – kept him on top. As Seger's career approaches the 50-year mark, having released more than 20 studio and compilation albums with sales exceeding 50 million ...
Remembering Adam Yauch
Adam Yauch, better known to fans of the Beastie Boys as MCA, passed away on Friday, May 4, 2012, after a battle with cancer that began in 2009. He was 47.
Born on August 5, 1964, the vocalist and bassist was raised in New York City, a fertile backdrop that informed the street-smart attitude and urban swagger of the Beastie Boys. Formed as a hardcore quartet in 1981 with Yauch and Michael Diamond aka Mike D, drummer Kate Schellenbach and guitarist John Berry, this earliest incarnation of the Beastie Boys played its first gig at Yauch's 17th birthday party. This was the same lineup that recorded the group's debut eight-song EP, Polly Wog Stew, which included the hardcore manifesto "Beastie Boys." When Berry left the group, Adam Horowitz aka ADROCK was recruited and the newly formed band cut a 12-inch single for "Cooky Puss"/"Beastie Revolution." When Schellenbach left the group (later joining Luscious Jackson), the three-man posse of ...
