In 1973 Tom Waits released his debut studio album Closing Time. On the cover sits Waits, slumped over an old piano in the dark corner of some smoke filled bar. It’s the perfect preview of what you’ll find on the record, a collection of heart felt piano bar numbers. “Martha” is a beautiful song in which Waits reminisces about an old romance, a good example of his captivating piano work and poetic songwriting.
When most artists write songs about songwriting, they embarrass themselves with maudlin sentiment or self-aggrandizing egotism. That goes double for songs about how hard it is to be a star. Nobody wants to hear someone famous complain about how hard it is to make a living in show business. With “Sad Songs And Waltzes,” Willie Nelson addresses both those subjects without sounding like a fool. He wrote the song just before he became a household name, but he can still sing the tune today as a superstar and get away with it, thanks to his earthy, anti-showbiz stance. He tells everyone his gal cheated on him and done him wrong, and you can almost hear him smirk as he sings: “My record may say it, but no one will play it, ’cause sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.”
Roxy Music was famous for placing provocative models on their covers throughout the 70’s. Playboy’s playmate of the year Marilyn Cole graced Stranded, the band’s third release (the first without art rocker Brian Eno). The record went #1 in the UK and included the top twenty single “Street Life.” This track opens the album with a building cascade of sound and features a jazzy piano interlude. The band would have to wait another few years to break in the US with “Love is the Drug.”
Fresh from the success of Bowie’s magic dust on “All The Young Dudes,” Mott The Hoople regrouped, shook the glitter off and got back to their Dylan inspired signature sound for 1973’s Mott. A stand out track from this record was the sing-along bar stool ditty “Honaloochie Boogie,” a hit single that climbed to #12 on the UK charts. The band has recently reformed for a series of shows in London, but there is no word as to whether or not they will bring their act back to the states. Us yanks could only be so lucky.
Today’s track comes from Deep Purple, the English rock band that once held the Guinness World Record for the loudest concert. Shortly after releasing their 1973 album Who Do We Think We Are, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left the band due to a feud with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Fortunately they stuck together long enough to finish the album which yielded such hits as “Woman from Tokyo” and today’s track “Super Trouper,” a turbulent love song about life in the spotlight.
Arguably Ireland’s finest musical export, Thin Lizzy (led by Phil Lynott) combined soulful & romantic songwriting, a powerful twin-guitar attack and an everyman/outsider persona, within the classic confines of 1970s hard rock.These elements helped garner the band one huge hit (“The Boys Are Back In Town”) and a worldwide cult following that exists to this day.“Whisky In The Jar” was the band’s first song to hit the British & Irish charts, in 1973.Originally a traditional Irish folk song, “Whiskey In The Jar” tells the tale of a highwayman who, after robbing a Captain while traversing the Cork & Kerry mountains, is betrayed by his lady.Despite the band’s original apprehension over releasing this track as a single (due to it being a bit mellower than the remainder of their output at the time), it is a more than worthy addition to the pedigree of a narrative that stretches back to the 17th century.Happy St. Patrick’s Day DFD!
It was hard (so tough) to be a Beach Boy in the early 1970s. Shunned by the cognoscenti as musical Methuselahs, the greatest beards in all of rock watched their albums languish in stores. The members themselves felt stifled by the business and that warm California sun, so in the summer of 1972 they relocated to Amsterdam hoping to find inspiration as they recorded their next LP. They were joined by Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar of The Flames, and band Svengali Brian Wilson, who arrived after only three attempts to coax him onto a plane. This act of creative cleansing turned into an eight-month ordeal, capped by then-label Warner Bros.’ dismissal of the finished release as weak. In retrospect, perhaps that’s a tad harsh. The aspects may not have been right, but as “Funky Pretty” proves, there were gems amid Holland’s gloomy murk.
By the time they recorded this Norman Whitfield track, The Jackson 5’s longtime association with Motown was slowly coming to an end. The brothers were bristling under Berry Gordy’s bubblegum thumb, eager to explore the kind of epic funk exemplified here, but on their own terms. (When the boys implore, “Play it, Tito!” it’s not Tito who responds.) Two years later, with the exception of Jermaine, they jumped to CBS, where they became captains of their own success rather than the cherubic front for armies of songwriters and session musicians. Little Michael, rest his soul, topped them all by becoming a worldwide institution, an icon for all time. Some 40 years after their debut—breathless trails of headlines aside—the lasting essence of the Jackson legacy is the ability to evolve past childhood novelty into an independent creative force. We didn’t have to just dance and hum along.
I’m so glad that before Judee Sill climbed aboard her enchanted sky machine, she left us her exquisite music. Saying “singer-songwriter” or “Laurel Canyon Sound” just doesn’t do her the justice she deserves. Judee was a true original. And, sadly, folks didn’t discover until far too late. Heck , I didn’t – but once I heard her, I felt like so many things from that time period finally came together. Take “The Kiss” – the 2nd song on her 2nd album. It is about as perfect as a song can be. Romantic imagery abounds and her ethereal double tracked vocal almost feels like two lovers professing their undying devotion to each other. Add in her arrangement and orchestration and this song should be a given for every “what song should I use for my wedding?” list. Am I gushing – maybe selling it too much? Listen. Love. There’s a reason bands like Fleet Foxes are covering her now. She’s magic.
Talk about a song with a great melody and chorus! Don’t know if this ever received any airplay but it deserved it. “South City Midnight Lady” is on The Captain And Me, a great album that featured such hits as “China Grove” and “Long Train Runnin”. With Patrick Simmons on vocals and Jeff Baxter on the pedal steel guitar, this classic Doobie Brothers track just melts into your consciousness.
Many would point to Who’s Next as Pete Townshend’s crowning achievement, and from a commercial standpoint it would be hard to argue. There are others though, myself included, who would submit that Quadrophenia was actually the height of his creative genius. Released in 1973, Quadrophenia evolved the rock opera form Townshend was perfecting from the whimsical Tommy to a more complex narrative about the multi-personalities we all have hidden deep within us. And hidden among the radio tracks on this brilliant double-album is the DFD gem we present today, “I’m One,” where the protagonist, Jimmy, battles between despair and euphoria.
Little Trip To Heaven (On The Wings of Your Love) Tom Waits
Label: Elektra
Released: 1973
Before Tom Waits sounded like the crazy neighbor screaming and banging on his trash cans to keep you from grilling on Thursday, he had a different delivery. His debut – Closing Time – is a flawless album that was made for CD, simply because you shouldn’t be able to get up and flip it over. You should be a wreck halfway through Side One if the bartender and your heart are taking care of you. There’s a different emotion at work here, and you’ll never have enough cash to stuff in the tip jar on his piano. “Little Trip…” is an exquisite love song that comes near the end of the night, and to prove how beautiful it is – it was the first dance at my wedding. Thank you, Tom Waits – you magnificent bastard.
John Prine has a keen eye and a sharp pen. The man has this incredible knack for spinning a tale, cutting to the emotional bone of the story, then wrapping that narrative in a great tune. Be they witty, poignant, or simply straightforward, his songs rarely miss the mark and always stop and make you listen. “Please Don’t Bury Me” punningly tackles the issue of dying and post-mortem plans in such a way that no matter what your own personal wishes may be, you stop, listen, and laugh. He takes the reality and turns it on it’s ear and makes us think about it. As Bob Dylan said, “Nobody but Prine could write like that.” Happy (Saturday) Birthday John Prine.
If the Ramones were the first Punk band, then the New York Dolls were definitely their mother. The Dolls collected the detritus of Rock and Roll songs and parts, mashed it together and created that swaggery, skanky stamp that marked their creations. Kind of an f-ed up, moldy Mr. Potato Head, but with lipstick. The Petri dish of a scene they created in New York helped form dozens of the classic ‘70s CBGBs bands. After 2 albums, the band festered and died amidst personnel and chronic substance abuse issues. 28 years later, the 2 living members, David Johansen, and Sylvain Sylvain, recorded again. Their latest album, Cause I Sez So, produced by Todd Rundgren who produced their first record, spawned a re-recording of their original “Trash” which can be found on a vinyl 45 – along with a rare live version as the b-side - as part of Record Store Day tomorrow.
With a siren and Ronnie Wood’s booze-induced, sleazy guitar kicking “Borstal Boys” off, you know you are in for a wild ride. I can picture the band set up in a bar with plenty of empty pint glasses all over the place while clouds of smoke fill the room. The song’s ode to the rough boys in “cell block five” only add to its down-and-dirty appeal. The song comes from 1973’s Ooh La La, which was to be the final studio album for the Faces. Wood would go on to serve the Stones soon enough and Rod Stewart would continue with a solo career that was just taking off around the time of this album’s sessions. But for that moment in time, the band was able to hold it together for one more round.
1973 was good to Todd Rundgren and vice-versa. Besides producing a critically acclaimed debut album (New York Dolls) and Grand Funk Railroad’s commercial comeback (We’re An American Band) he released A Wizard, A True Star and began creating 1974’s Todd. A musical cornucopia of ideas, sounds, and melodies, AWATS contains more hooks than a bait-and-tackle store. “The average person’s brain resembles the Wizard album,” Todd told Melody Maker in 1974. “In fact, that was my brain, until I cleared it all out. That was my first stream of consciousness album.” And one he’ll perform in its entirety for the first time this September in—perhaps appropriately—Devo’s hometown, Akron. In Todd we still trust.
From 1973’s Back To The World, this sweet groove of a song tends to get lost among Mayfield’s canon of classics. It soars upon that tight, engaging falsetto not a single soul man alive has been able to copy. And its push-and-pull horns pump up the melody and gently kiss the heart right down to its blood-tingling base. Each day that I wake—rain or shine—I play The Impressions, Major Lance, or Curtis himself, and it fills my soul with pride to know that this man’s joy is my everyday shot of wakeup cool. Being a South Side Chicago native makes the experience even that much more personal. To start your day this way is to say that there is something out there worth fighting for.
Perhaps no band has helped put gumbo-flavored, New Orleans-style funk squarely on the listening public’s radar screen better than Little Feat. Loopy, rollicking rhythms (and polyrhythms), thumping bass lines, and bebop-dance-hall-textured block-chord piano work—all anchored by founder Lowell George’s fluid slide-guitar playing—became their trademark sound, and it’s all over 1973’s Dixie Chicken. Which brings us to “Fool Yourself”: Written by session guitarist Fred Tackett, who would permanently join the group 15 years later, the tune marks somewhat of a departure in that it eschews the Feat’s usual fat-bottomed R&B approach in favor of a Southern California country-rock groove. High-soaring harmonies dominate the unforgettable chorus, while George delivers one of the most impassioned vocal performances of his all-too-brief career.
Although a mere footnote in Southern soul history, Jackie Moore’s Sweet Charlie Babe yielded a fistful of killer sister soul and the hit “Precious, Precious.” Buried toward the end of the first side lies this Eddie Hinton-penned classic, which always stuck out as one of my favorites. Even with the cool, mid-tempo Miami funk production (the album was recorded at Criteria with Jackie’s cousin, Miami hitmaker Dave Crawford), the Hinton-influenced gospel-style guitar wailing and the solid, punchy horn arrangement prove you can take the song out of Muscle Shoals, but you can’t take the Shoals out of a song. It might not get you dancing, but then again, the hip-grinding sounds of “Cover Me” were not meant to be enjoyed on the dance floor.
Who Do We Think We Are looks like the usual outstanding Deep Purple album, and for the most part, sounds like it. But upon further review, something’s missing: Ritchie Blackmore’s solos. During recording, he tired of soloing, offering those spaces to keyboardist Jon Lord, who reluctantly accepted the spotlight. (At least Blackmore was stimulated enough to mine several killer riffs for the album.) Those looking to Deep Purple for profound, thought-provoking lyrics, however, have scrubbed up for the wrong party, which brings us to this song—named after a drum fill—about a one-night stand. Dylan it ain’t, but you don’t bang your head to Bob, either.
You might not recognize this road saga unless you’re familiar with Nelson’s impressive but brief two-album stint for Atlantic Records. (Rhino collected these complete recordings for a three-disc set in 2006.) The “devil” is Nelson’s longtime drummer Paul English, who’s been providing a steady backbeat for the Willie Nelson Family Band since 1966 and who’s also quite the prankster. (Nelson has sung of their many misadventures before. After listening to this track, check out his classic “Me And Paul.”) This song details some of the bad stuff that happens while traveling in a tour bus, including coming down with pneumonia. Nelson also tries to take bids on his famous tour bus—nicknamed “The Time Tube”—which was previously owned by country star Porter Wagoner. I doubt he’s really interested in selling; it really should be in the Smithsonian someday anyway.
The French call it joie de vivre; in Spanish, it’s viva la vida. Wendy Waldman captures the intangible joy of life in a small beach town, south of the border, with this luminous track from her debut album, Love Has Got Me. “Gringo en Mexico” radiates with passion: for freedom, for adventure, and for rich and colorful characters who aren’t in a hurry, who’ve discovered that true happiness lies far from “the heart of the city.” It’s so descriptive, the images appear as if in 3-D: tequila, bananas and coconuts, huaraches . . . the cool blossom scent in the air. Feel the ocean breeze blow in as the sun goes down and the El Mariachi Uclatlan band begins to play. Grab a drink and shout “Viva la vida!”
As a pre-Internet child of the Midwest, the earliest sparks of a now-lifelong obsession with music history were largely created and satisfied by a handful of invaluable sources—battered copies of Grand Royal magazine, lifted from a friend’s older brother, answers given by our local record shop (if the courage was ever mustered to ask the significantly older/cooler employees anything beyond restroom location), and the cover tunes found on Yo La Tengo’s 1990 album Fakebook and in the encores of their live shows. I was a big Velvets fan as a kid, but was just too young to even realize that if I took a chance and explored beyond their albums and the first few Lou Reed LPs, I might find more songs I liked. This changed when I heard Yo La Tengo’s version of John Cale’s “Andalucia.” I immediately bought Paris 1919 and more or less set sail on an infinite journey backwards that I’ll probably stay on ’til the Vampire Weekend is over.
“Hearts On Fire” is one of the most beautiful songs Gram Parsons ever recorded. It’s really shocking to think that by the time this duet with Emmylou Harris appeared on the Grievous Angel album in 1974, the 26-year-old singer had already been dead for months. Parsons was in the middle of an incredibly rough year when the album was recorded. He had just lost his home in a fire and was still mourning the death of his friend Clarence White, who played with Parsons on The Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo sessions. He was also in the middle of divorcing his wife. It’s easy to imagine Gram as the unfaithful lover described in the lyrics and Emmylou as the heartbroken wife.
For a year that rocked like no other, it’s hard to beat 1973. Many a ’73 album hangs proudly in the classic rock hall of fame: Quadrophenia, Dark Side Of The Moon, Houses Of The Holy, to name just a few. Then you had the first albums from other now-legends, including Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and this band, a group named after its guitarist, Ronnie Montrose. Montrose idolized Jimmy Page and, like Jimmy, paid his session dues playing with pros like Van Morrison and Herbie Hancock. He was even still on the charts with his former band, The Edgar Winter Group, when he cut this incredible track, featuring a then-unknown Sammy Hagar on vocals. Check it out.
