1970

                So we’ve left the ‘60s behind, and here at the dawn of the ‘70s, I’m tempted to say that, if you want to consider it a genre, here is where “classic rock” begins.  Obviously we had some precursors, and some bands that get played on classic rock radio before now (although I used to hear Cream all the time on classic rock, and I never do anymore).  By 1970, distinctive styles of hard rock and roots rock are emerging that, while obviously indebted to what came before, are distinct from their psychedelic-rock or folk-rock forebearers, and moreover have a sensibility that will dominate the next decade (as remembered by radio), and continue to be a wellspring for retro-minded acts to the present day. 

                The hard rock story is a little more complicated than the roots-rock story, so I’ll start there.  Basically, although there’s still a lot in common sonically, hard rock is starting to splinter into prog, metal, and what, for lack of a better term, I’ll just call 70s-style hard rock.   Prog-wise, this is a year where bands are very much still trying to find their footing.  Yes and Pink Floyd mess around with more orchestrated sounds, Yes adding a string section and Floyd a horn section.  Of the two, Yes does much better, and Time And A Word is an album I may have unfairly dismissed before now: the orchestrated pieces sound a little stilted, and drove original guitarist Peter Banks out of the band, but on “Astral Traveler” and “Time & A Word” the classic Yes sound is just about there, and I do very much love the classic Yes sound: virtuosic, but with a focus on tight composition rather than flashy showboating or directionless jamming, and just clever, joyous music.  Floyd, however, still is a little way from reaching their breakthrough.  They’ve still got some hazy psychedelic pop songs, sandwiched between a pair of long, multi-movement songs, the first of which I like a great deal, but they’ll do this kind of thing much better later on.  Still, if Atom Heart Mother is not quite there, King Crimson’s In The Wake Of Poseidon is a flat-out disappointment.  Last year, they were at the cutting edge of prog, and put one of the genre’s great albums, but this year they’re content to put out an inferior clone, right down to the swirly hazy majestic title track and the directionless interminable ballad.  If last year, they were at the cutting edge of prog-rock, this year a band of dirty German hippies have stolen that title.  It’s probably not the first Krautrock album, but Amon Düül II’s Yeti is the first one in my collection.  And it’s really good, in a jammy grungy kind of way.  I suspect strongly that, if it came out in 2012, it’d be dubbed prog-metal, but in 1970 it sounds like an evolution of the harder edge of psychedelic rock. 

                Which actually segues fairly neatly into Jethro Tull.  Tull themselves don’t sound too metal this year.  In fact, if anything, they sound most influenced by John Lennon’s rock numbers on The White Album, giving the lie to my argument that the Beatles sounded out of time by 1968.  One of their former guitarists, though, flat out invents a genre this year.  Black Sabbath this year actually kind of parallel Led Zeppelin last year, with the jammy debut that sounds heavily indebted to Cream followed by the album with the classic riff-driven hits you still hear on the radio.  I think it’s’ fair to say that Sabbath’s debut is the first metal album, although they certainly didn’t invent it out of whole cloth.  Most obvious is how the debut sounds like a slowed-down Cream, or perhaps like something between Zeppelin and the Stooges.  There’s also elements of progginess in there, and residual psychedelia, especially on slower numbers like “Planet Caravan” on Paranoid.  Something I definitely didn’t notice before now, but which in retrospect makes perfect sense, by the way, is how much “The Wizard” sounds like Jethro Tull’s “Song for Jeffery.”  It’s not a rewrite or a carbon copy, but the two songs share some DNA. 

                Deep Purple are probably the band to give Sabbath a run at the title for first metal album, as they also go metal in a decidedly more uptempo virtuosic kind of way.  It’s definitely obvious listening through this way how metal, while influenced by the blues-rock of Cream and the like, more directly traces its origins to early prog-rock.  After all, Purple were one of the first prog bands, and Tony Iommi (briefly) was the lead guitarist for another of them.

                The third band mentioned as a founder of heavy metal is, of course, Led Zeppelin, but it’s always been a bit reductive to call them a metal band, especially early on.  Their first couple of records were very much blues-rock, but by 1970 they’re moving past that.  In fact, even though the hits off of II still get airplay, I think III might be the crucial record in Zeppelin’s evolution.  The first two were good, but not remarkably different from what Cream or Jeff Beck was doing.  By III, however, they’re really moving into their own distinct space.  Side one has them moving out of the standard blues-rock sound into something more distinctly their own, and side two (to quote Zoolander) gave people a chance to see a side of their versatility.  And what it really shows is that Jimmy Page was listening to what was happening contemporarily in the English folk-rock scene.  This element was there from the beginning: even in the Yardbirds, Page covered Pentangle, but on side two of III they sound more like peers of Fairport Convention than they do of Cream.  That omnivorous element is what, to my mind, really set Zeppelin apart from their peers.  In no other way would I call them Beatle-esque, but they did a similar trick of incorporating what was happening around them while also putting their unique stamp on it.

                All of this is well and good, but does mean that, in 1970, there’s a decided shortage of pop-rock of the Cream-Stones-Who variety, of songs that rock creatively, but fit within the single format.  Artists like Van Morrison are putting out great pop stuff, but however you want to classify the soul-jazz-folk mélange of Moondance, it’s not rock.   All this prog, metal, and increasingly jam-based roots-rock (on which more below) has good creative stuff going on, but brevity is a virtue of none of these genres, at least circa 1970.  For prog, especially, this seems like a wasted opportunity.  You do have bands like Spirit continuing to try, Yarbirds/Beatles style, to make experimental psych-rock singles, although after their pretty awesome Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, they’ll turn into a more conventional long-form prog band.  It does make sense, though, why you start to see the first inklings of glam rock appear in 1970, to fill that pop-rock void.  Bowie puts out his first worthwhile album this year, although it sounds more like wordy prog-rock than the glam he’ll start doing in earnest next year.  It’s also an interesting counterfactual to think of Bowie pursuing a prog path rather than a glam one: either seem like they could get to the same end point of Low and Heroes by the end of the decade.  Still, between Bowie and Roxy Music, I suspect glam and prog, like prog and metal, may have had more common origins than I’d thought.  Still, by 1970, you’re also getting other warning signs of glam.  Mott the Hoople have a few records out, although they’re still sounding like garage-rock also-rans at this point.  Also, Marc Bolan has finally begin the shift from the dippy post-Barrett hippie folk of Tyrannosaurus Rex to the more rocking T. Rex sound, especially with the “Ride A White Swan” single, but overall sounds halfway between the two worlds.

                Of course, one of the reasons that pop-rock feels empty is that two of the biggest groups in the genre basically take the year off.  For the Who, it’s because they’re trying to follow Tommy with Pete Townshend’s SMiLE equivalent, Lifehouse, and for the Rolling Stones, it’s because they’re breaking in their new guitarist.  Still, I’ve been spoiled to this point by the profligacy of ‘60s artists.  It’ll be different going year-by-year once artists routinely take 2-3 years between albums.  The Stones and Who, by contrast, even release live albums to fill the gap this year.  Of the two, the Who’s Live At Leeds trumps the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, if only because the live Who show off a different, more intense and less precise side of the band, while the live Stones sound about like you’d expect them to: a little looser, but mostly just competent performances of great songs. 

                The Kinks do, however, give us a new studio album this year.  Lola is a slight step down from Arthur, although what’s more interesting is how the Kinks are sounding more of-their-time than last year.  On Lola, the Kinks incorporate a more roots sound, especially on “Apeman” and “Gotta Be Free.”  They’ll go much more in this direction next year, but the shift is already beginning here.  And they’re hardly alone in going roots.  The sound of UK-style blues-rock bands incorporating a more roots sound is the heart of why I’ve dubbed 1970 the birth-point of classic rock.  In fact, I might even go so far as to point to Mountain’s ‘debut’ (quoted only b/c of the whole Leslie West’s Mountain stuff from last year), and “Mississippi Queen” specifically as the real beginning of 70’s style classic rock, mixing as it does the electric blues style of Cream and the like with a more swinging and earthy arrangement.   The sound was almost there last year, but the songs weren’t, and it all comes together this year.

                Clapton also goes roots this year, adopting a sound much closer to orthodox blues than he’s done since before Cream started.  Of course, a lot of the credit goes to Duane Allman, who has a fantastic year in 1970, between Layla and the Allman Brothers’ Idlewild South.  Layla definitely sounds closer to the Allman Brothers than anything Cream had done prior, with its overall mellower and cleaner sound.  It also would be better as a single than a double LP, but that’s true of almost all of them.  Idlewild South, meanwhile, is an album that really surprised me on re-listening, with how great it is.  The Allmans had their sound down on the debut, but have really stepped up the songcraft on this one. 

                Clapton, interestingly, is far from alone among psychedelic acts turning towards a more roots sound.  The Doors and the Grateful Dead both turn towards a more blues/folk sound this year.  The Doors’ attempt is ok, but they’ll do better at it next year, when they find a way to mix the menace of the first two albums with the more blues-based construction of Morrison Hotel.  The Dead, meanwhile, put out the two finest studio albums of their career, and two of the better albums of the whole West Coast country-rock scene.  Certainly much better than any of the Byrds’ post-Sweetheart albums, which mine a very similar sound.  For my money, though, Allmans and Dead notwithstanding, the best act in the jammy-roots vein in 1970 is Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Not having any live CCR to compare, I can’t say how they stack up live, but Cosmo’s Factory does a masterful job of being loose, catchy, and inventive all at the same time.  Of course, I’m listening to it as I write this, so that may color my opinion. 

                Of course, the Dead’s album material in 1970 is more focused on songs than jams, and here it’s in good company with the likes of the CSNY mob, who have a very good year this year overall.  Both Stills and Young put out their finest solo albums, plus the group as a whole put out their best album.  At this point, they definitely have staked their claim to being America’s premier vocal group, which makes it interesting to compare them to the previous holders of the title, the Beach Boys.  The Beach Boys put out probably their best album since the whole SMiLE affair, but it’s a decidedly mixed bag of songs recalling their classic sound, songs that sound like they’re now chasing CSN, SMiLE remnants, and whatever else they can come up with.  Déjà Vu is very much the work of 4 distinct songwriters, but still has a unity of purpose that seems to elude the post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys.  Without Brian’s leadership, they sound like a band that can’t figure out which way to go, so go in all directions at once.  Which is a shame, as for at least a few post-meltdown years, they had enough talent to still do interesting things, but just couldn’t figure out what direction to go.  It all makes these albums extremely fascinating by suggesting all the things they could have done, while at the same time being such messes that it’s clear why their popularity & critical cred declined.

                Speaking of mid-60s greats making distinctly lesser works, Bob Dylan has abandoned his straight-country approach as quickly as he’s adopted it, and to all appearances gone mad himself.  I’m not sure Dylan’s ever released as much new material in a single year as he has in 1970, with a double-album and a single album, but while the ’65-66 stuff sounded like a flood of creativity being unleashed, the 1970 stuff is just…odd.  Neither Self-Portrait or New Morning will ever be mistaken for Dylan’s best work, but both are possibly more sonically daring than he’d ever been before (when he basically copped his sound from what was happening in the world of early psych-rock) or since.  They’re both operating within the country/folk/roots world, but what can you say about an album that features nasally-rocker Bob singing a duet with clean-voiced-country Bob, on Paul Simon’s “The Boxer,” no less?  Or an album that features Dylan scat singing?  I will say that Self-Portrait sounds more like an inside joke between Bob and himself, while New Morning sounds, at times, like a genuine attempt to make a follow-up record to John Wesley Harding, but neither sounds particularly inspired.  That Dylan will go almost entirely silent in terms of recorded output in 1971 makes the whole mess all the more perplexing.  Perhaps he was trying to substitute quantity for quality (or perspiration for inspiration), and after this year decided to step back?

                The biggest change for one of the major ‘60s acts this year, however, is hands-down the end of the Beatles.  For what it’s worth, Let It Be sounds more a part of the broader musical conversation than the Beatles have sounded since Magical Mystery Tour (if we don’t count Yellow Submarine, at least).  More than anything, it sounds like the Beatles’ own attempt at a roots-rock record, and for my money it works well.  I own this album in three versions, the Phil Spector-produced Let It Be, the Glyn Johns-produced (& unreleased) Get Back, and Paul McCartney’s 2003 remix, Let It Be…Naked, and I rank them Spector>Johns>>McCartney.  I see why people prefer the simpler Johns versions, but I grew up with the Spector version, and it’s the way I expect the album to sound.  McCartney’s revisionist version, though, just sounds jarringly modern.  In a metaphor sure to demonstrate my geek cred, it’s like George Lucas’s CGI enhancements to the original Star Wars: it’s too clean, and thus just seems out of place and wrong.

                I have speculated that, since the Beatles all give us solo records in 1970 that a fun game would be to try to assemble what a Beatles record would have sounded like out of these tracks.  McCartney’s stuff probably sounds the most Beatles-y, esp. “Maybe I’m Amazed,” a kissing cousin of “Let It Be.”  Harrison puts out an album so sprawling and so good it makes McCartney and Lennon look petty and insecure for not letting Harrison put more of his songs on Beatles records, causing him to accumulate such a backlog of material.  So much of the stuff on All Things Must Pass is at least as good as anything John or Paul’s been doing since Pepper.  Lennon, though, wins the prize for sounding the least Beatle-esque.  There are times when Plastic Ono Band sounds more like the Stooges than anything the Beatles have done (esp. “I Found Out” and “Well, Well, Well”), and times when it sounds like a template for either Elliot Smith or Lou Reed.  And it all sounds far too intensely personal to fit on a Beatles album.  I’ve always said that each of the Beatles put out exactly one truly great solo album, and for John and George, those both came out in 1970.  You’ll just have to keep reading to find out which I think Paul & RIngo’s were.

                1970 was a down year for a lot of the giants of ‘60s rock.  The Who and the Stones sat the year out, the Beach Boys and Dylan grasped for direction, and the Beatles broke up.  It is, however, also the year that some of the major figures of ‘70s music really start to come into their own (as if on cue, no less).  I’ve mentioned Zeppelin above, and Neil Young was already exploring his classic sound last year, but the biggest surprise is Bob Marley’s creative breakthrough.  Marley and the Wailers had been kicking around the ska scene since at least 1963, but frankly always sounded like second-stringers, sounding more like a 50s doo-wop group than anything else.  For whatever reason, 1970 is the year they make their great leap forward.  They kinda do it by jacking Toots & the Maytals’ sound, too.  Toots had been working a folk-ska sound since his debut, but Marley (and Tosh) adopt it themselves, and really make it their own.  As they say, good artists borrow, and great artists steal, so this is by no means a slam on Marley or Tosh, especially when the results are as great as theirs.  Toots is a better singer than either of them, but didn’t have the songwriting of the Wailers.  Of course, it’ll still be a few years before they make it big outside of Jamaica.  Also, for what it’s worth, reggae sounds much closer to North American roots-rock than ska/rocksteady, which fit more comfortably alongside North American soul. 

                While the rock world has largely abandoned psychedelia, 1970 is when Miles Davis embraces it wholeheartedly.  I know a lot of jazz purists really don’t care for Bitches Brew, but I think it’s fantastic, and one of the last times when jazz sounded like it was in a dialogue with the world outside of itself, barring the ironic covers of pop songs that continue to litter the cut-out bins of record stores and college radio stations.  Bitches Brew, and Miles’ later funk explorations, sound like someone seriously engaging with his contemporaries.  Bitches Brew especially sounds at least as good as any of the psychedelic sounds coming out of rock music.  Unsurprisingly, to my mind, as the band Miles assembled outclassed just about any rock band in talent and training, and consequently could be more daring without falling apart than just about any of them.  Rock bands tended to drown in formlessness when they went deep without a prog-style structure, but crackerjack jazz players could stay under much longer while staying together.

                Finally, in a year that had me speculating a lot on paths not taken, the biggest question of them all is what would have happened had Jimi Hendrix lived.  Based on what’s left of his uncompleted fourth album, Hendrix sounded like he was carrying forward an evolution of the psychedelic sound much different from the jazzy (Beck), bluesy (Clapton), or folk/metally (Page) paths his UK peers took.  Maybe Santana sounded closest, with a mix of spacey guitar and a more grounded rhythm section; or perhaps Let It Bleed-era Stones, mixing elements of contemporary R&B and rock.  Regardless, Hendrix himself sounded unique on First Rays, as much as he did on Are You Experienced?, and hearing his work in context makes me realize even more how distinct he was from his peers.

Song of the Year:  John Lennon – “God.”  I, as a rule, hate most atheist songs, since they combine the preachy proselytizing of Christian rock with a douche-y sense of intellectual superiority.  As a consequence, there are few songs I hate more than, for instance, XTC’s “Dear God.”  Lennon’s “God” is different, though, since it’s really about the pain of God’s absence.  Lennon is honest when he says he doesn’t believe in God, and sincere when he says he thinks believing in himself (and Yoko) is enough, but as he runs through the litany of things he used to believe in, it’s clear that on some level he wishes he still could believe in something bigger than himself.  A tremendously affecting song, and certainly something that could never appear on a Beatles record.

Album of the Year:  A breakout year for Neil Young (almost certainly my favorite artist of all time), so it’s either After The Gold Rush, his solo masterpiece and an album I’ve worn out several copies of listening to, or Déjà Vu, where he lifts Crosby, Stills, & Nash to a next level, and they start to sound like the American equivalent of the Beatles (in terms of multiple distinct complementary voices all writing great songs) that Buffalo Springfield looked like it could have been.  Of course, Neil would continue to make fantastic solo records, while this is CSNY’s undisputed high point.  So call it a draw.

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Jimi Hendrix.  Obviously I always knew he was great, but listening to how he was pursuing his own unique musical vision makes me really wonder how the whole rest of music might have unfolded had he stayed among the living.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  King Crimson.  I loved In the Court of the Crimson King, and listening to it again, I really hoped I’d just overlooked In the Wake of Poseidon, but no.  It’s just a limp, uninspired record from a band that was at the very leading edge of prog just a year earlier.

Album List

Amon Düül II - Yeti

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Black Sabbath - Past Lives

Bloodrock – 2

Bob Dylan – New Morning

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait

Bob Dylan - Vol. 2 : Rare And Unreleased, 1963-1974

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Soul Rebels

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock: The Anthology 1969-78

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself: The Best Of Charles Wright

Country Joe & the Fish - The Collected Country Joe & the Fish

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle, Vol. 1

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Wedding Songs

Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) - Déjà Vu

Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) - Ohio/Find The Cost Of Freedom Single

David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World

Deep Purple - The Very Best Of Deep Purple

Dennis Alcapone - Guns Don't Argue

Derek & The Dominos – Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs

Elton John - Greatest Hits 1970-2002

Elvis Presley - Elvis 30 #1 Hits

Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis

Elvis Presley - The Memphis Record

Emitt Rhodes - Emitt Rhodes

Fairport Convention - Full House

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

George Harrison - Apple Jam

Isaac Hayes - Greatest Hits Singles

J.J. Cale - Very Best Of

James Brown - 20 All Time Greatest Hits!

James Brown - Soul on Top

Jethro Tull – Benefit

Jethro Tull - Original Masters

Joe Cocker – Mad Dogs & Englishmen

John Cale – Vintage Violence

John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

Johnny Cash – Hello, I’m Johnny Cash

Joni Mitchell – Ladies Of The Canyon

King Crimson - In The Wake Of Poseidon [Limited Edition]

Led Zeppelin - Coda

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

Merle Haggard - HAG: The Best Of Merle Haggard

Michael Jackson - The Essential Michael Jackson

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

Miles Davis - Circle In The Round

Miles Davis - Live - Evil

Mott The Hoople - An Introduction To Mott The Hoople

Mountain – Climbing!

Neil Young - Decade

Neil Young - Live At The Fillmore East

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – After The Gold Rush

Nick Drake - Bryter Layter

Nick Drake - Misc.

Nick Drake - Way To Blue (An Introduction To Nick Drake)

Os Mutantes - Everything Is Possible!: The Best Of Os Mutantes

Ozzy Osbourne - The Ozzman Cometh

Paul McCartney - Wingspan: History

Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother

Ringo Starr - Photograph: The Very Best Of Ringo Starr

Rod Stewart - Gold

Santana – Abraxas

Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone [Disc 1]

Soft Machine – Third

Stephen Stills – Stephen Stills

Stevie Wonder - At The Close Of A Century

Syd Barrett - Opel

T. Rex - 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection

T. Rex – T. Rex

The Allman Brothers – Idlewild South

The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys [Disc 3]

The Beach Boys – Sunflower

The Beatles - Let It Be

The Beatles - Let It Be... Naked

The Beatles - Mono Masters

The Beatles - Past Masters, Vol. 2

The Byrds - III: Full Throttle

The Byrds - VI: Final Approach

The Doors - Morrison Hotel

The Ethiopians - Everything Crash: The Best of The Ethiopians

The Faces - The Best Of Faces: Good Boys When They're Asleep

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Burrito Deluxe

The Grateful Dead - American Beauty

The Grateful Dead - Wedding Songs

The Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

The Kinks – Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One

The Kinks - The Kink Kronikles

The Rolling Stones – Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out

The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years

The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of The Staple Singers

The Stooges - Fun House

The Temptations - Psychedelic Soul

The Velvet Underground - Loaded

The Who - Live At Leeds

The Who - Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970

The Who - The Ultimate Collection

Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die

V/A - Hitsville U.S.A.

V/A - Liz's Favorites

V/A - Reservoir Dogs

V/A - Samba Soul 70!

Van Morrison - His Band And The Street Choir

Van Morrison - Moondance

Yes – Time And A Word

1969

                In many ways a deepening of the genre explosion of 1968, but now we’re starting to get into the territory where the genres are becoming more fully-formed and distinctive.  This is probably most clear in the world of prog, where most of the big UK prog bands are up and running already (no ELP, but Jethro Tull, Yes, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson all put out albums in 1969).  Of them, Yes and Floyd are still very tentative.  Yes’s debut is fun, but surprisingly indebted to Deep Purple’s early prog sound, right down to the organ-driven sound and rearranged Beatles cover.  I think they do a better job of it, but don’t sound particularly original in doing so.  Deep Purple themselves put out their last prog album this year too, which I have on cassette, remember being underwhelmed by, and haven’t dug out for this project.  Floyd, meanwhile, have an album that practically screams “filler,” the half-live/half-studio double Ummagumma.  The live half is good, but nothing they haven’t already done better on Saucerful, still mining their psychedelic half-structured jam sound.  The studio half, though, is just a mess of basically-failed experimentation.  Overall, a step back from Saucerful, especially in contrast to what King Crimson is able to do.  Crimson’s debut, In The Court of the Crimson King, is probably the best prog album we’ve gotten so far, but what’s interesting in context is how it sounds so heavily indebted to psych predecessors.  Floyd, obviously, but also Hendrix on “21^st Century Schizoid Man” and Traffic on the mellower numbers.  That might be the most surprising thing from listening to circa ’69 prog, is how Traffic sounds like an influence on a lot of what’s going on.  I hear it also on Jethro Tull’s 2^nd album, the first with Martin Barre, and the first that strikes on the classic Tull formula of folk-prog.  I also failed to mention last year, but find it worth noting that UK folk-rock is taking off in a big way.  This is especially clear in ’69, as Fairport Convention have stopped aping US folk-rock and embraced their English folk wholeheartedly.  Next year, Traffic will sound like they’re following Tull & Fairport on the more folk-rocking John Barleycorn Must Die, but for now Tull seems to be picking up from where Traffic suggested they might go last year.

                Sadly, this year Traffic is breaking up, releasing the half studio leftovers/half live stuff Last Exit.  Titles like “Medicated Goo” and “Shanghai Noodle Factory” make it pretty clear that these are not exactly fully-formed songs, but rather platforms for jamming.  Which is fine and all, except that last year they did so much better.  The live stuff is probably better, but not fantastic or anything.  Interestingly, Cream release basically the same album as their breakup/farewell album, with the same half live-half studio formula (Goodbye).  They differ in two key ways, of course.  First, they actually stay broken up.  Second, this might just be Cream’s best album.  The live stuff is much better than most of the Wheels of Fire stuff, keeping the intensity of that album’s “Crossroad” up for the entire run, and the 3 studio tracks not only avoid the forced whimsy that cluttered Disraeli Gears and Wheels, but includes what’s possibly their best pop song: the George Harrison-featuring (and therefore unsurprisingly) Beatleseque “Badge.”  Also, no tedious drum solos this time.

                So not only do Cream and Traffic basically release the same album, but then their chief creative forces join together for Blind Faith the same year, and it’s a great EP regrettably stretched to LP length Cut the interminable drum solo and the uninspiring Buddy Holly cover, and you’re left with what sounds like a Traffic album with better guitar playing.  It’s interesting just how much this is Steve Winwood’s project, and Clapton fades into the background.  My working thesis on Clapton at this point is that he’s basically a great sideman who is only as good as the creative force he’s working with/for.  So he was tepid in the Yardbirds because they didn’t get strong creative force until Jeff Beck replaced Clapton, and so his best solo album was the one where Duane Allman drove him to excel, and his other ones were directionless and uneven.  It does raise the question of who the creative force pushing Clapton was in Cream.  Presumably not Ginger Baker, who similarly becomes a Steve Winwood sideman in Blind Faith.  Possibly Jack Bruce, but I think the correct answer is producer/fourth member Felix Pappalardi, at least based on the fact that Pappalardi went on to join Mountain, who sound like a natural evolution of the Cream sound in a lot of ways, and I’m not sure I could tell you anything Bruce did post-Cream.  Mountain, by the way, technically haven’t started yet, but Leslie West called his first solo album Mountain and the same band plus a keyboardist would go on to form Mountain next year, so that seems like a bit of a technicality.  Unless, of course, you think the secret to Mountain’s success was the piano-playing, I suppose.  Not a lot to say about Mountain, though.  It sounds great while it’s playing, in a very c. 1969 hard rock way, highly indebted to Cream but clearly its own animal.  Apart from the cover of “This Wheel’s On Fire,” though, I can’t really remember any songs once it stops playing.  That’ll change once they actually become Mountain, though.

                The biggest development in the hard rock world, though, is clearly (if retrospectively) Led Zeppelin’s debut (and second album).  Although I guess I can hear why they were not obviously world-beaters out of the gate.  Listened to in context, they’re definitely mining the same territory as Cream and Mountain and Jeff Beck and so many other heavy blues-rock bands.  They do a good job of it, but they’re not heads-and-shoulders above the competition or anything.  They do sound a lot better from a fidelity perspective, although whether that’s due to Page’s original production or the superior remastering of my CD reissues, I can’t say.  What’s most interesting to me is how I re-hear things they’re doing in context.  This is most clear on “Thank You,” which I always heard prior as a kind of proto-power-ballad, but heard on 1969 shuffle sounds much more like a “Whiter Shade of Pale” type psychedelic ballad.  It crops up a couple of other places too: “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” rocks like a Lennon rocker off the White Album, Page does a pretty spot-on Hendrix impression on “How Many More Times,” etc.  So I can hear why people didn’t immediately jump on the Zep bandwagon, although I still can’t hear why people thought the Jeff Beck Group was better.  Their second album has a lot of the same problems as the first: reliance on other people’s songs, inventive guitar playing but uninspired backing musicians, Rod Stewart.  I think I give it a slight edge, though, because the soloing is more distinctive.  I’ll grant that at this point Jeff Beck was a more interesting guitarist than Jimmy Page, although Page was a better arranger and formed a better band to showcase his talents.

                One interesting note in all of this stuff is a real resurgence of old 50s rock & roll covers.  Sometimes this is clearly searching for material (Blind Faith, Jeff Beck), but it also makes me wonder if Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special didn’t have more of an impact than I gave credit.  Perhaps he reminded all of these ‘60s rockers how much they loved the ‘50s stuff.  Even Bob Dylan gets in on it, although he takes it a step further by actually recording a mess of tracks with one of Elvis’s Sun Records labelmates. 

                Elvis himself, for what it’s worth, is doing all kinds of things, but largely not looking back to his Sun days.  I’d generally described the Elvis in Memphis period as his take on the Memphis soul sound, but that doesn’t quite capture it.  It’s accurate insofar as some of the stuff, but not all.  The ballads sound much closer to country, and thus to traditional Elvis ballads, but “Suspicious Minds” sounds much more Motown than Stax, and “Power Of My Love” sounds very close to the heavy pounding sound of early Zeppelin, albeit with a horn section.  I’m not ready to say that From Elvis In Memphis is a better album than Elvis, but I might go so far as to say that, on the whole 1969 at least rivals 1956 as Elvis’s peak.  And I’m genuinely surprised how contemporary all of it sounds mixed in with what else is going on. 

                It also seems to make a good segue to talking briefly about Joe Cocker, who is really just kind of a footnote, doing his best approximation of Comeback Special-era Elvis.  But if Elvis was probably the greatest rock & roll vocalist to neither write his own material or be part of a band with the writer Robert Plant/Roger Daltrey style, Joe Cocker is probably the last to have a real career purely as an interpreter of other people’s material.  (outside of R&B, of course)  But man, between him and Rod Stewart, the Boomers clearly loved their phlegmy vocalists.

                Speaking of great vocalists, though, it’s interesting to note how great the Stooges sound right on their debut.  Not all that innovative.   They’re basically a garage band, and on their debut not as good as, say, the Monks.  So much better than the MC5, though, who apparently were better thought-of on their contemporary debut (probably due to the radical political content part).  But the Stooges absolutely school them.  Not brilliant players or songwriters (really the debut is “I Wanna Be Your Dog” & “No Fun” plus filler), but it all carries on the charisma of Iggy Pop, probably the best rock vocalist at conveying a sense of menace since at least Jagger, and almost as good as John Lee Hooker.  Also much more daring than the Velvets, who have this year mutated into being a folk-rock band with some mild experimentation.  So like the Byrds circa 1966 (esp. on “What Goes On”).  Hardly a bad sound, mind you, but again the Velvets sound more a part of their time than I gave them credit for.  And I give them credit still for sounding radically different on each of their albums.

                Speaking of the Byrds, Gram Parsons is gone, but the Byrds are sticking with that country sound.   As, for that matter is ex-Byrd Gene Clark on his own material.  Parson’s own new band does it better, though, and Gilded Palaces of Sin is probably better than even Sweetheart of the Rodeo, even if Sweetheart is more important by virtue of coming first.  Even the Beach Boys are starting to incorporate country elements in ’69, going so far as to cover “Cotton Fields.”  Impressively, for the first time since his debut Bob Dylan sounds like a follower.  Nashville Skyline isn’t a radical departure from his roots sound, but it sounds more like the Flying Burrito Brothers than John Wesley Harding.  He won’t stick with it, but it’s also a trip to hear Dylan’s “clean” voice.

                Dylan’s old Band-mates (get it?) haven’t gone country, but are keeping with their own roots-rock vision, almost certainly bettering their debut.  It’s impressive that they’re sticking with a very non-jammy approach of meticulous song-construction, since elsewhere in the roots world, jams seem to be very much in vogue, esp. with Creedence, who release 3(!) albums this year.  Contrary to what a workload like that might suggest, they get less jammy and more song-focused as the year goes on, but always have space for a 5+ minute groove.

                One of the interesting aspects of this project is how I’ve got albums that I’m fairly certain were not on anybody’s radar at the time, because those bands would go on to do bigger things later.  Yes’s debut, for instance, doesn’t sound especially remarkable in context, and the only reason I have it is because they’d grow up to be the band that did The Yes Album and Fragile.  In a similar vein is the Allman Brothers’ debut, which is good (fitting somewhere between the roots-jams of Creedence and UK blues rock, but closer to the former).  But it’s not in itself a great classic, and if the Allmans had broken up right after, it would be another forgotten footnote.  By contrast, take the Sir Douglas Quintet’s Mendocino.  They did fade into obscurity soon after, but it’s probably a better album than the Allman’s debut, working the same roots-jammy territory but with better songwriting and probably worse playing.  Still, it’s not impossible to conceive of a world where Sir Douglass went on to classic-rock-radio immortality, and the Allmans became an obscurity, whose LP I picked up on a whim because I’d once heard that one song (in real life, “She’s About A Mover”, but in my alternate reality, let’s say “Whipping Post”).

I have no good segue to make here, but I also probably need to talk about Tommy somewhere.  It’s a fantastic record, but doesn’t sound like too much else going on in rock.  The Who and Kinks both in ’69 are playing music that evolves pretty clearly from what was happening in the mid-60s, but that doesn’t sound much like anything else that’s going on.  They sound more like each other than anybody else, but even then only insofar as they’re making mod-rock-derived concept albums.  The Kinks are opening up their sound, adding a horn section and the like, while the Who are expanding their compositional chops (although I probably more properly should say Ray Davies and Pete Townshend here).   Also following on the early-60s sound are the beginnings of what will become glam rock in a couple of years.  Both Bowie and Marc Bolan (still calling his band Tyrannosaurus Rex) sound like committed Syd Barrett disciples at this point, albeit more like the acoustic solo stuff Syd is doing now, rather than the Floyd-era stuff.  Nick Drake, incidentally, sounds about halfway between the British folk scene he was a part of, and the damaged acoustic rock of Syd.

                I’ll close out the rock discussion by talking about the Beatles and the Stones.  Sadly, there’s only one more year of Beatles.  Still, in 1969, the Beatles are starting to sound removed from whatever else is going on in music, neither influencing or influenced by, but off on their own path.  This isn’t absolutely the case.  The Yellow Submarine tracks sound like the harder psychedelia that emerged in ’68, and “The Sun King” sounds somewhat like an homage to Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys.  Also, while I listened to the Get Back bootleg, I’ll talk more about that in the context of Let It Be, next year.  But for the most part, the Beatles’ big release, Abbey Road, sounds pretty out-of-time.  I’ve sometimes heard the side-2 suite described as influencing prog, but as I discussed above, prog was pretty fully-formed already.  Really, the whole album sounds like the Beatles just removed themselves to their own musical world.  This definitely shouldn’t be taken as a slam, as it’s a very entertaining musical world, but it contrasts with the Stones, who sound very much still engaged with the music around them.  If the Stones on Beggar’s Banquet sounded like they’d just embraced the return to roots, by Let It Bleed they’ve opened their influences back up considerably.  The roots stuff is still there, obviously, especially on tracks like “Love In Vain” and “You’ve Got The Silver,” but elsewhere it sounds like they’re listening to contemporary soul/R&B stuff, especially on songs like “Live With Me” and “Monkey Man.”  And obviously they go gospel on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” although I’ve always preferred the single edit, which lops off the intro gospel choir bit.  It’s all-in-all probably my favorite Stones album, although I can see the argument for either Sticky Fingers or Exile. 

                Outside of rock, my record collection is beginning to fail me.  My big Stax set ended in ’68, and I haven’t sprung for its sequel sets, meaning my soul collection gets much more artist-centered and therefore less comprehensive.  Some good stuff in soul this year, though, and the biggest year for soul evolving and changing since at least Motown’s debut, I think.  Both the Temptations and Isaac Hayes have changed up their sounds in a big way.  The Temptations have begun their ‘psychedelic soul’ period, which is probably the other big influence on Funkadelic (after Sly & The Family Stone), and is pretty remarkable in its own right.  Isaac Hayes, meanwhile, more or less invents album-length soul.  There had been great soul albums before Hot Buttered Soul, but they were basically just collections of single-length songs.  Hayes is the first artist, or at least the first commercially-successful artist, to take advantage of the ability to stretch out on 12-20 minute epics like “Walk On By” and “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.”  The former shows how Hayes has been listening to his rock contemporaries, and incorporates acid guitar into a string-heavy soul jam, and the latter is a phenomenal example of a slow-burn/build.

                Outside of the Anglo-American world entirely, ’69 is a good year for illustrating why I hate hate hate the term “world music.”  It’s overly-reductive and vaguely colonial, grouping all sorts of musical styles together into a single category basically defined as “not made in the US, Canada, or Europe.”  What’s happening in Jamaica is at least as different from what’s happening in Brazil as what’s happening in London is from what’s happening in Detroit.  Moreover, lumping together traditional folk styles and contemporary pop misses a lot of what’s going on.  I’ve talked before about how this project reinforces my contention that ska/rocksteady should be considered a strand of North American soul music, and that Kingston was up there with Detroit and Memphis as capitals of ‘60s soul.  The only reason it sounds more influenced than influential is essentially technological: St. Louis radio stations reached Jamaica, but Jamaican stations didn’t have the signal strength to reciprocate.  What’s interesting this year is how you can begin to hear how Latin American music is in dialogue with North American and British music.  The Stones have already started incorporating Latin rhythms, and samba again sounds like a new variety of soul music rather than a wholly-distinct genre.  The whole mess probably most clearly comes together on Santana’s debut, which alternately sounds like an acid rock record, a roots-rock record, and a Latin jazz record, often all at once and in the same song.  So score another one for the theory that genre purity is a bad idea.

Song of the Year:  “Gimme Shelter” – The Rolling Stones.  Part of me wants to say the closing suite on Abbey Road, but “Gimme Shelter” is just about perfect from beginning to end, and captures such a fantastic atmosphere of desperation and menace.  The Stones’ finest song, bar none.

Album of the Year:  The Kinks – Arthur.  Maybe Tommy or Let It Bleed as runners up, but not only is Arthur the Kinks’ best album, but it’s got three of my all-time favorite Kinks songs on it (the widely-acknowledged classic “Shangri-La,” but also “Brainwashed” and “Arthur”).  Also, "Arthur we love you and want to help you" is a much more likeable sentiment than the pissy hipsterisms of Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" or the Beatles' "She's Leaving Home."  Abbey Road not in the running, by the way.  When it’s good, it’s really good, but it’s got some decidedly fillerish stuff (I’m looking at you, “Octopus’s Garden” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”).

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Isaac Hayes.  I knew he was always Stax’s secret weapon, writing the majority of the Stax classics, and I knew he was great solo in the ‘70s, but I didn’t realize how ahead of the curve he was in pioneering album-length soul music.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Probably either Yes or the Allman Brothers, for the same reason in both cases.  Their debuts are quite good, well-played, and highly-enjoyable, but apart from knowing both go on to do bigger and better things, neither particularly stand out from the crowd.  Maybe Yes’s debut would go on to be one of those ‘forgotten classics’ rock geeks love, like Love or the Zombies, and the Allmans probably would have been fondly remembered by local scenesters in Jacksonville, but neither sounded like world-beaters out of the gate.

Albums

B.B. King - B.B. King

Blind Faith – Blind Faith

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock: The Anthology 1969-78

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself: The Best Of Charles Wright

Country Joe & the Fish - The Collected Country Joe & the Fish

Cream – Goodbye

Cream - The Very Best Of Cream

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bayou Country

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle, Vol. 1

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Willie & The Poor Boys

Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) - Crosby, Stills & Nash

David Bowie - Changesbowie

Dillard & Clark – Through The Morning, Through The Night

Elvis Presley - Back In Memphis

Elvis Presley - Elvis 30 #1 Hits

Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis

Elvis Presley - The Memphis Record

Fairport Convention - Liege And Lief

Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays

Frank Sinatra - Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years

Frank Zappa - Hot Rats

Iggy Pop - Nude & Rude: The Best Of Iggy Pop

Isaac Hayes - Greatest Hits Singles

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul

James Brown - 20 All Time Greatest Hits!

Jeff Beck Group – Beck-Ola

Jethro Tull - Original Masters

Jethro Tull - Stand Up

Jethro Tull – Stand Up

Jimmy Cliff - Jimmy Cliff

Joe Cocker – Joe Cocker!

Johnny Cash – At San Quentin

Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan - The Dylan-Cash Sessions

King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King

Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Leslie West – Mountain

MC5 - Kick Out The Jams

Merle Haggard - HAG: The Best Of Merle Haggard

Michael Jackson - The Essential Michael Jackson

Miles Davis - In A Silent Way

Neil Young - Decade

Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Nick Drake - Way To Blue (An Introduction To Nick Drake)

Os Mutantes - Everything Is Possible!: The Best Of Os Mutantes

Pentangle - Early Classics

Pink Floyd – Ummagumma

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Happy Trails

Rod Stewart & The Faces - Gold

Santana – Santana

Sir Douglas Quintet – Mendocino

Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone

Stevie Wonder - At The Close Of A Century

Syd Barrett - Opel

T. Rex - 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection

The Allman Brothers Band – The Allman Brothers Band

The Band – The Band

The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys

The Beatles - Abbey Road

The Beatles - Get Back

The Beatles - Mono Masters

The Beatles - Past Masters, Vol. 2

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

The Byrds - III: Full Throttle

The Byrds - VI: Final Approach

The Doors – The Soft Parade

The Ethiopians - Everything Crash: The Best of The Ethiopians

The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - BBC Sessions

The Kinks - Arthur: Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire

The Kinks - The Kink Kronikles

The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years

The Stooges - The Stooges

The Temptations - Psychedelic Soul

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

The Who  - Tommy

The Who - The Ultimate Collection

Tommy McCook & The Super Sonic - Top Secret

Toots & The Maytals - Time Tough - The Anthology

Traffic – Last Exit

V/A – Easy Rider soundtrack

V/A - Hitsville U.S.A.

V/A - Kill Bill, Vol. 1

V/A - Psychedelic Pop

V/A - Samba Soul 70!

V/A - The Best Of 60s Surf

V/A – Woodstock soundtrack

Willie Colón - Cosa Nuestra

Yes – Yes

1968

                1968 has long been one of my favorite years in rock/pop music, and by virtue of this project, I think I’m beginning to realize why.  For all the years up to this point, the various subgenres evolved and communicated with each other and all, but generally stayed in their respective lines.  There was the British Invasion stuff, the LA Spector/Wilson pop, folk & folk-rock, etc.  In the aftermath of psychedelia (which, as I discussed last time is a mixed bag in itself), rock is exploding in so many different directions at once.  Prog, metal, fusion, country-rock, roots rock, boogie-rock; it all kinda start here.  But because it’s the beginning of all of this stuff, it’s not nearly so codified by rules of what is/is not within a given genre.  So it all feels much more creative.  It’s also why I love 1979 and 1994; also periods in which the aftermath of some big musical event (punk or grunge, later on) leads to a brief moment when the rules of genre break down.  So there’s a lot of fun stuff going on, and the roots of a lot of things that will continue but not necessarily better get better later on.

                Some of these directions are not exactly for the best, of course.  This is the birth of jazz-rock, a genre I, with a few exceptions, don’t care for at all.  And yet I love fusion, which almost makes me fear that my lines of division are just that I call the good stuff fusion and the bad stuff jazz-rock.  But I think I can parse the difference.  Fusion I think more of as jazz playing around with rock forms and/or instrumentation, while jazz-rock is rock playing with jazz forms.  It’s not just that it’s jazz musicians or rock musicians, because Jeff Beck (in a couple of years) will definitely be a fusion guy.  I can’t really think of a converse example, though.  Weather Report, maybe?  Regardless, fusion isn’t really here yet, but jazz-rock is, which makes me wonder if jazz-rock doesn’t inspire fusion.  In any event, Blood, Sweat, & Tears sound like they don’t inspire anything I care about (Chicago, but meh).  Interesting in concept, but stilted in execution.  Big band music and rock, it turns out, go poorly together.  Too structured, and not spontaneous enough.  Contrast that with Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, which alternately sounds meticulously constructed and like Van and the band are just in such sync that Van can take off in whatever direction he wants at any time, and the band will know how to follow.

Traffic, also, are much better that Blood Sweat & Tears for having a looser feel.  Their first album last year was a psychedelic mess, only slightly saved by how great “Dear Mr. Fantasy” is.  This year’s, though, is one of my favorites of the year.  Loose & jammy, pointing toward a mellower improvisational style than what the likes of Cream or Hendrix are doing.  Or the Grateful Dead, for that matter, who are still very much in their early deep-psych mode.  This isn’t my favorite mode of Dead, but I give them credit: either they or Pink Floyd are pretty much the best band working in this style circa 1968, and they’re much more improvisational.  Certainly leaps and bounds above the other San Fran bands.  Probably, as I’ve suggested before, because they’re superior musicians who learned their craft before getting experimental (I’m looking disapprovingly at you, Country Joe & The Fish).

                Speaking of the Floyd, they’re in an interesting spot right now, having lost their genius (but actually insane) leader, and picking up the pieces.  In the absence of Syd Barrett, it’ll take them a few years to really figure out what they’re doing, and even then it’ll be more about impeccable craftsmanship than the live-wire creativity of the Syd era.  For now, though, Saucerful of Secrets is kind of a mixed bag.  I confess to loving “Corporal Clegg,” which bangs along fantastically on the chorus, even if it loses me on its kazoo-based bridge.  A little too much forced whimsy.  More important, but less fun, is the title track, which is one of the first extended arranged pieces I’ve encountered.  There have been long jammy tracks by the likes of the Stones, Love, Cream, etc., and Floyd’s own “Intersteller Overdrive” was plotted out and 9 minutes, but “Saucerful” has movements & structure in a way that clearly makes it a big step toward developing prog.  Also on the prog front are the first two Deep Purple albums.  I’d previously thought of the early, proggy Purple as fun, but not especially important.  That’s changed somewhat: they were really also among the first doing orchestrated, multi-movement stuff, while Jethro Tull is still a blues band, and before the likes of Yes and King Crimson had even formed…  I know a lot of people are down on prog, but I love it (or at least, selectively love some of the big prog bands), especially in its early years.  Esp. early on, it’s an attempt to build on the long-form sonically-experimental world of psych without getting bogged down in directionless jamming.  This is perhaps no better illustrated than by Pink Floyd, who emphatically were a psychedelic band trying to find direction, at least in 1968.

                The other big innovation in rock in ’68 is the emergence of what I guess I’d call roots-rock, although I hate that term largely because roots-rock circa 2012 sounds stuffy and boring.  But in ’68, that’s not nearly so much the case.  It seems that across the English-speaking world (at least), the psychedelic explosion produced a counter-veiling move toward something more grounded.  Not a revival of rockabilly or anything like that, but something somewhat more song-focused  and less focused on sonic flash.  So obviously Dylan and the Band, both of whom release some fantastic records this year, and who sat out psychedelia jamming together in an upstate New York basement.  Also the Byrds, who go hardcore country here.  So hardcore that I sometimes couldn’t tell until the vocals started if the country track playing was a Byrds song or a Merle Haggard song.  Another interesting change this year: in 1965, I wrote about how country sounded worlds away from the rest of the music world.  Merle Haggard may be famous for hating hippies, but he and Waylon Jennings are both making music that sounds much more like it exists in the same universe as the world of rock. 

                Given all this rootsiness, perhaps it’s not all that surprising that this is the beginning of Elvis’s all-too-brief return to top form.  It’s great to have Elvis back, but it says something about how relatively dire his 60s output had gotten that essentially all the hype was in ’68 was basically based on one concert (with accompanying TV special).  And it’s not a radical reinvention or anything (that comes next year).  It’s a good but not mind-blowing show, and Elvis still sounds kinda out-of-time. 

Surprisingly some bands of the best of the roots records are from bands in the very heart of psychedelic London and San Francisco.  I can’t decide if it’s more surprising that the San Fran scene produced the very out-of-place Creedence Clearwater Revival or that the Stones so quickly turned on a dime from the psychedelia of Their Satanic Majesties’ Request to Beggar’s Banquet, the first of what might just be the greatest 4-album run in the history of rock.  I will say that they have a lot more in common than differences in ’68.  Not only are they sonically working similarly rocked-up territory, but they’re both basically suburban middle class kids fascinated by the sounds of the American South.  The Stones are better at songwriting, at least at this point, but they’ve also been active much longer. 

Also on the subject of the Stones; I’ve had an argument with a friend who claimed that the Stones always had the misfortune of being the 2^nd-greatest rock band, since no sooner do the Beatles break up than Led Zeppelin steal the title.  I don’t know that I buy the second part, but I will say that the Stones have a solid claim to the title this year.  The Beatles outdid them in the early blues-rock years, the pop of 1665-66, and the psych of last year, but they Stones have finally found a sound the Beatles can’t do better than them.  The White Album Beatles had a lot of virtues (a lot), but they couldn’t muster the sleazy swing that came seemingly effortlessly to the Stones on tracks like “Stray Cat Blues” or the menace of tracks like “Street Fighting Man.”  When they tried, you got things like “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?,” which probably isn’t meant to be taken seriously, but doesn’t disprove my argument that I don’t think you could imagine any of the Beatles credibly doing what the Stones were up to. 

Of course, there were a  lot of other challengers for “best rock group” in ’68, especially Cream & Hendrix.  Wheels of Fire might just be Clapton’s finest moment.  The studio half has fewer and more tolerable duds, though they still sound like junior high kids reciting Monty Python when they try to get whimsical (“Pressed Rat and Warthog”).  The live stuff is more hit-or-miss.  “Crossroads” is everything the Clapton-era Yardbirds were hyped to be.  On the other hand, “Toad.”  Way back in 1959, Dave Brubeck showed how to make a drum solo interesting, and it’s so crushingly simple: KEEP THE REST OF THE RHYTHM SECTION PLAYING!  But no, no one listened, and instead “Toad” is the first of far too many interminable examples of psych, jam, and prog bands stopping what they’re doing so the rest of the band can have a smoke and the drummer can bang around tunelessly.  Hendrix, however, not only had a drummer from an exceptional family, but far better taste.  Electric Ladyland doesn’t have the revolutionary shock of Are You Experienced?, but has a whole lotta good going on.  Also a whole lot of evolving in all kinds of directions.  Some throwbacky R&B, some rootsy jams, some pop-psych, some proggy jams, some Cylon-summoning Dylan covers.   Like 1968, or like The White Album, a band & artist exploding in all sorts of directions.

Back with the rest of the British rock bands, a couple of realizations.  The first is that, although last year Piper-era Floyd sounded de novo, in retrospect they seem more clearly a mod band going insane, with the same core rhythmic punch underneath.  This is especially clear when looking at what bands like the Kinks and the Small Faces sound like.  Not as far out, to be sure, but existing on the same continuum.  In fact, Kinks songs like “Phenomenal Cat” and “Wicked Annabella” sound very close to what you might expect a mellower Syd Barrett to record.  Which is another interesting revelation: the standard myth of the Kinks says that by 1968 they were a band out of time: doing acoustic songs about country living rather than hardcore psychedelic jams.  That doesn’t really hold up.  Lyrically, they’re not all caught up in the (retroactively ridiculous-sounding) Age of Aquarius rhetoric of psych, but they fit in pretty naturally with what else is going on.  Mellower, sure, but not radically out of place.  Same goes for the Velvet Underground.  Not, obviously, on the mellow bit, but in sounding much more of their time.  A song like “Hey Mr. Rain,” for instance, could easily be done by the (pre-country) Byrds or Love and not sound radically different.

                Legitimately sounding out of place, though, is Frank Zappa, at least on Cruising With Ruben & the Jets, his doo-wop throwback.  I love it, but listening to it in context makes as much sense as listening to it surrounded by the music of the 2012.  In either case, it just sounds removed from whatever else is going on.  Of course, on We’re Only In It For The Money, Zappa showed what he thought of what else was going on (hint from title: he wasn’t a fan), but that record really fits well with the psych-rock he’s mocking, but for the cynicism of the lyrics.

                In the world of soul, what’s most exciting to me is the start of the classic Stevie sound.  He’s still not putting out essential albums, but “I Don’t Know Why” especially sounds like the adult Stevie we’ll get in the ‘70s.  Also seeming to make the leap from just-another-Motown-artist is Marvin Gaye.  His “Heard It Through The Grapevine” similarly presages the singer-focused, string heavy sound that’ll be the classic Marvin sound.  Sadder stuff over at Stax, though, as Otis Redding is gone, leaving the very good (but not actually his best) “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay” and the just-ok “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa” remake “The Happy Song.”  I see why “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay” gets so much attention, though, since as noted above, this was the year that other soul artists who would dominate the ‘70s made their great leaps forward.  It’s hard to say what Redding would have gone on to do, but it certainly would have been worth hearing. 

                Some interesting stuff happening not just outside of rock, but outside of the US-UK axis.  In Jamaica, we’ve left first-wave ska for the more soul-influenced pastures of rocksteady.  It’s interesting to hear this stuff sequenced among the Stax stuff.  It sounds out of place against the clean, tight pop constructions of Motown, but not next to Stax.  It’s clearly got its own sound, but doesn’t sound (like ska could) throwbacky or behind the times.  Rather, it sounds like a third kind of contemporary North American soul.  Also interesting, esp. since for me & my record collection, it comes out of nowhere, is the psych sound of Os Mutantes.   Much like I can’t tell Merle Haggard from the Byrds until the singing starts, I can’t tell Os Mutantes  from the psych sounds of London until the Portuguese vocals start.  Which is kind of remarkable, and makes me wonder what else was going on in Brazil (or, for you Arrested Development fans, Portugal, down South America way). 

Song of the Year:  I’ve previously argued that one of the greatest records of all time, in terms of sustained greatness per minute is the “I Thank You”/”Wrap It Up” single by Sam & Dave, so I’ll stretch the category definition and give it the nod.  Sam & Dave’s peak, the peak of the ‘classic’ Stax sound, tow of the greatest soul songs/performances ever, and a pair of songs that almost always make me feel better about life (whether I’m already feeling good about life or not).

Album of the Year:  The White Album (or The Beatles if you prefer to use its ‘real’ title)  A lot of what the Beatles are doing doesn’t fit with what’s going on elsewhere in 1968, but no single record better captures the sense of music exploding in all directions that was happening in 1968.  Also, the only record I think rivals The White Album in sheer genre-hopping ambition is the Clash’s Sandinista!, and I respect both bands immensely for having the vision to credibly attempt such a project, even if there are more than a couple of misfires on both albums.

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Deep Purple.  In retrospect, they weren’t just prog in their early years, but they were prog innovators.  Not especially great prog innovators, but credit for breaking ground.  Plus, even if it’s not the best prog you’ll hear, they do rock pretty credibly.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:   The Jeff Beck Group.  Clapton’s hitting his peak, but Jeff Beck seems to have stalled, doing the same Yardbirds-style fuzz rock he was doing in 1966, only without the songs.  Beck sounds not only behind Clapton, but also bands like Jethro Tull, still very much a blues-rock band at this point, but one messing with the formula.  Also, while Beck can play a mean guitar, the rest of the Group are pretty faceless.  Except for Rod Steward, who I’ve always thought sounded as though he should wait for that chest congestion to clear up before he starts singing.

Album List

Blood, Sweat, & Tears – Child Is Father To The Man

Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan - Live 1961-2000: Thirty-Nine Years of Great Concert Performances

Bob Dylan - Misc.

Boomfield-Kooper-Stills – Super Session

Buffalo Springfield - Retrospective - The Best of Buffalo Springfield

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself: The Best Of Charles Wright

Country Joe & the Fish - The Collected Country Joe & the Fish

Cream - The Very Best Of Cream

Cream – Wheels of Fire

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle, Vol. 1

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Deep Purple – Shades of Deep Purple

Deep Purple – The Book of Talieslyn

Donovan – Barbajangal

Elvis Presley - The NBC Special [Live]

Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays

Frank Zappa - Cruising With Ruben & The Jets

Frank Zappa - We're Only In It For The Money

Hugh Malcolm - Get On Up (Joe Gibbs Rocksteady 1967-1968)

Jackie Mittoo - Evening Time

James Brown - 20 All Time Greatest Hits!

Jeff Beck – Truth

Jethro Tull – This Was

John Lee Hooker - The Ultimate Collection 1948-1990

Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison

Leonard Cohen - The Best Of

Lyn Taitt & The Jetts – Sounds…Rock Steady

Merle Haggard - HAG: The Best Of Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard - Mama Tried

Miles Davis - Circle In The Round

Miles Davis - Filles De Kilimanjaro

Miles Davis - Miles in the Sky

Miles Davis - Nefertiti

Neil Young - Decade

Neil Young – Neil Young

Nick Drake - Way To Blue (An Introduction To Nick Drake)

Nick Lowe - Nutted By Reality

Os Mutantes - Everything Is Possible!: The Best Of Os Mutantes

Pentangle - Early Classics

Pink Floyd – A Saucerful of Secrets

Pink Floyd - The Pink Floyd Early Singles

Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone

Stevie Wonder - At The Close Of A Century

Syd Barrett - Opel

T. Rex - 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection

The Action - Rolled Gold

The Band - Music From Big Pink

The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys

The Beatles - Mono Masters

The Beatles - Past Masters, Vol. 2

The Beatles - The Beatles

The Beatles - The White Album Demos akaThe Kinfauns Demos

The Byrds - II: Cruising Altitude

The Byrds - III: Full Throttle

The Ethiopians - Everything Crash: The Best of The Ethiopians

The Grateful Dead - Two from the Vault

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

The Kinks - The Kink Kronikles

The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society

The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years

The Small Faces - Ogdens Nut Gone Flake

The Staple Singers - Soul Folk In Action

The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers - We'll Get Over

The Temptations - Psychedelic Soul

The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat

The Who – Magic Bus

The Who - The Ultimate Collection

The Zombies - Odyssey & Oracle

Toots & The Maytals - Time Tough - The Anthology

Traffic – Traffic

V/A - Hitsville U.S.A.

V/A - Kill Bill, Vol. 1

V/A - Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era

V/A - Psychedelic Pop

V/A - Reservoir Dogs

V/A - Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Van Morrison - Bang Masters

Waylon Jennings - Best Of Waylon Jennings