If you had a chance to see Jeff Beck on his 2010 tour, you had the pleasure of experiencing one of the world’s most incredible drummers, Narada Michael Walden.Narada plays with a sensitivity and artistry that is truly delightful. All of his notes are played with excellence, from whispery-quiet-tasty cymbal work to thunderous double bass crescendos.“Saint and The Rascal” is one of several exceptional songs from Narada’s Garden Of Love Light album, which is a great listen from beginning to end.
It’s only a matter of time before this unofficial holiday becomes legit.(You heard it here first, Hallmark!)So, to celebrate 4/20 we offer up Peter Tosh’s anthem “Legalize It”.Tosh got his start as a founding member of The Wailers, along with Bob Marley & Bunny Livingston.After their Catch A Fire album in 1973, Tosh left the group to pursue a solo career.In 1976, he released “Legalize It”.A paean to the benefits of marijuana, the song features a heavy rhythm track, in the style of Lee “Scratch” Perry.Harmonies by Rita Marley & Judy Mowatt, coupled with lyrical “winks” from Tosh help to lighten the mood and set it apart from his other more stridently political recordings.While today’s song is a bit of an obvious choice, it serves as a reminder that there will be a potentially ground-breaking ballot initiative in California this November to legalize marijuana, which can be looked upon as a testament to the bravery and vision of Peter Tosh.“Legalize it, and I’ll advertise it.”
At 18, when some of us were slamming dominoes at the Senior Picnic, William “Bootsy” Collins was slapping a tricked-out bass on James Brown’s “Sex Machine.” Bootsy’s short apprenticeship’s in the Godfather’s band pays dividends in “I’d Rather Be With You.” This is slow burning funk. Uncut. Where seduction meets I’m-sorry-baby so effectively that you’ll wanna slide a copy to Tiger Woods. Bootzilla’s syncopated bass licks thump beneath Bernie Worrell’s teasing, upper register, Hammond organ vamping. Sticky stuff. Mid-mea culpa, Bootsy pleads, “Oh if I can just be your man/I wanna be your friend/not now and then, but until the end.” He pours the funk on so thick, even if you don’t believe him, it feels soothing going down.
Today’s catalog gem comes from the San Francisco band The Flamin’ Groovies.Fanzine publisher, music historian, and record label owner Greg Shaw was pivotal in The Groovies signing to Sire Records in 1976 and produced many of their great songs, including today’s track “Shake Some Action.”For those who did not catch this tune the first time around (when the album peaked at #142 on the pop charts in ‘76), you may remember its use in the 1995 classic Clueless.
Many people don’t think about the band Ambrosia as a prog rock band, but on their first 2 albums that’s exactly what they were before all the hit ballads. This song from their second album Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled (produced & engineered by Alan Parsons and my second favorite album of all time) covers a lot of musical ground while it tells the story of Chopin and George Sand and their relationship.
Coming from the sessions of his 1976 album In The Pocket, “I Can Dream Of You” is classic mellow James Taylor à la “Fire And Rain” or “Carolina In My Mind.”Maybe that’s why it was relegated to B-side status. The rest of the album attempts to stay musically current for its time. Upbeat, full-band songs, hints of a disco beat here and there, and even a cowrite with Stevie Wonder—adding a bit of white funk to the album’s palette—make this record quite diverse. Maybe a reflective ballad didn’t work in the mix with all of that. Nevertheless, “I Can Dream Of You” fits effortlessly into the JT canon of adult contemporary ballads and resurfaces here after 30-plus years of obscurity as the B-side to “Shower The People.” It is part of Rhino’s Digital 45 series, digital reissues of the original 45-RPM singles (A and B sides).
In a Little Spanish Town (T’was On a Night Like This) Yusef Lateef
Label: Atlantic
Released: 1976
Scribes went ape when Moby released Play, his landmark ’99 fusion of early-20th-century field recordings and modern electronic currents. But he wasn’t the first to join old and new: Yusef Lateef had him beat by some 20 years on 1976’s The Doctor Is In . . . And Out, when the saxophonist accompanied a 1927 City Service Quartet version of “In A Little Spanish Town (T’was On A Night Like This).” His smooth alto contrasts with its companion’s graveyard harmonies, as if soothing the restless dead to slumber. When these voices rise from beyond to sigh, “Many moons have passed away and she’s still in my heart,” every painful month is felt, transforming youth’s lost love into permanent, debilitating regret. Between the five decades that separate “Spanish Town’s” polished Prohibition-era croon from its loose Bicentennial wail brews a longing more powerful than perhaps even the song’s authors intended.
In that Bicentennial autumn, amid odes to wayward sons and disco ducks, Tom Waits escorted us to places so reeking in the truth and Chesterfield Kings, you felt like you needed a shower after listening. With “Pasties,” all he needed were 150 seconds, a drum kit, and prose. The album on which it appears, Small Change, made it as high as #89 on the Top 200 chart with little (if any) radio airplay. What Waits did have was a growing buzz on college campuses as well as recent converts who had gotten to witness music’s Bukowski—“the greatest entertainer on planet Earth,” he’d later be called by London’s Daily Telegraph—at his live shows.
“The trouble was started by a young Errol Flynn . . .”
Channel surf all you want, but it’s doubtful there’s a song about watching TV more breathtakingly exquisite—or more English—than “Blood On The Rooftops,” from Genesis’ Wind & Wuthering album. This ode to couch potatoes was mainly written by guitarist Steve Hackett, who has credited Phil Collins with the song’s title and its musical chorus. From the classical guitar opening to Tony Banks’ resplendent accompaniments to Phil’s phrasing, “Blood” conjures up a deep, damp autumnal day by the hearth and telly in one’s toasty British tweeds. Mike Rutherford calls this “one of Steve’s best moments.” Steve Hackett said, “Luckily the band went to town on it.” Indeed they did. Well done, lads. Very well done.
Huggin’ My Pillow Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Label: K-Tel
Released: 1976
By 1964 The Four Seasons were enjoying their third year as an unstoppable hit-making machine. What’s more, the Jersey paisans kept Old Glory flying in the face of the British Invasion—one of the few U.S. groups to do so. That summer they released the Rag Doll album, a solid-sender that featured its namesake #1 classic, two other Top 10ers, and no filler. “Huggin’ My Pillow” hailed from that LP and could have held its own as an A-side. This killer song kicks off with an arresting intro (skillfully bookended here as an outro) and sports innovative key changes in a taut arrangement, punctuated by “talking” drum fills, vibrant group vocals, and Frankie Valli bewailing a traumatic tale. Producer Bob Crewe helped fashion an artful, exhilarating pocket symphony for the ages, a jewel among the embarrassment of riches that were The Four Seasons’ lesser-known masterpieces.
