1964

                1964 was a very good year.  It’s also the year that my music collection explodes in size, largely because we’re finally getting into the British Invasion stuff.  Last year, all I really had from the UK were the Beatles and a pair of Stones singles.  1964 has the debut albums of the Stones, Kinks, and Yardbirds, plus debut singles by the Who and Them.  I realize that I always thought that the Who came before the Kinks, but, precursor groups aside, that was wrong.  The Kinks’ debut album is probably their worst lp of the 60s, and sounds pretty spotty.  Also, they were really terrible at blues covers.  But the singles were fantastic.  “You Really Got Me” sounds more modern than just about anything else from the period, except perhaps for “I’ve Got That Feeling,” which sounds like the blueprint for Spoon 35 years later.  And Them (featuring Van Morrison).  Only a pair of singles (“Don’t Start Crying Now” and “Baby Please Don’t Go”), but fresh out of the gate and they sound as good as the Stones at rocking up the blues.  Van’s voice is possibly actually better than Mick Jagger’s for this kind of material; it’s kind of too bad he drifted off into the more jazzy stuff in his solo career. 

The Yardbirds, though, are pretty dire this early on.  They can play their instruments well-enough, but they’re competent without being particularly exciting (even if they play frantically & up-tempo).  Honestly, Keith Relf’s semi-competent harmonica playing is more exciting than any of the technically adept but boring Clapton lead guitar.  Their bigger problem is Relf’s vocals.  He’s not a bad vocalist, exactly, and I don’t mind his voice on the later stuff, but when he sings  (and the Yardbirds play) blues songs, they sound exactly like what they are: a bunch of white middle-class kids imitating a form they learned from records of people on the other side of the Atlantic.  Someone with a voice like Relf’s has no business singing Howlin’ Wolf songs.  It’s almost embarrassing how much better Them are right out of the gate, not just on vocals (it not really being fair to compare most vocalists to Van Morrison), but at kickin’ up a ruckus instrumentally.  Fortunately, the Yardbirds will get much better once they ditch stuffy ol’ Clapton. 

                The Stones now  are much more interesting than their tepid first couple of singles.  It turns out that their ’64 singles are a tremendous run.  Their blues covers can still pale in comparison to the originals sometimes (see “Little Red Rooster” especially), but “It’s All Over Now” and “Not Fade Away” are arguably better than their originals, and there are genuine Jagger-Richards originals to be had here.  Again, though, I’m interested to note that the Beatles frequently sound more rockin’ than the Stones.  It’ll be interesting to see when exactly the Stones become the more rock-sounding, and the Beatles more pop.

                Also was a good year for the Beach Boys.   Again I hear them more in competition with the Phil Spector groups than the Beatles or the rest of the British Invasion.  This year, though, they sound like they’re finally outclassing Spector, both because Spector’s starting to repeat himself and because the Beach Boys are bringing some more energy.  Plus their harmonies are fantastic (check “Warmth of the Sun”). 

                Motown keeps on being Motown.  I have very little to say about them, since as a label, the Motown sound emerged more or less in its finished form, and stayed that way (at least into 1964).  I do have my first actual Motown album in 1964 (Where Did Our Love Go by the Supremes).  I guess another thing to note is how, in 1964 even moreso than earlier, what’s happening in soul/R&B sounds of a piece with what’s happening in rock & roll.  It’s almost shocking if you consider the contrast to, say, the 1990s, where alt-rock and rap might as well have been from different planets.  But the Beatles and the Supremes and the Beach Boys and the Stones and whoever else all sound right mixed together.  The difference is mostly better production (and more horns) in the Motown stuff. 

                Stax is pretty schizophrenic at this point, with some of it sounding like throwbacks to 50s R&B, but other stuff sounding much more like what you’d think of as the “classic” Stax sound.  I do wonder how much of this is just compilation bias, though, as I’ve got a “Best-of” Motown box set and a “complete singles” Stax set (4 discs of Motown to 9 of Stax).  Also sounding older-fashioned is the Jamaican stuff, esp. the early Wailers, who really sound like a late 50s/early 60s Stax group.  Except on “Simmer Down,” which really sounds like the beginning of the First Wave of Ska.  Yes, the Skatalites were already active last year, but sounded more like an ersatz jazz band than the birth of a new genre.  Plus, they were the backing band on “Simmer Down” anyway. 

                Oh, and I guess I should say something about NYC folk.  Dylan sounds about as bored with it as I do.  He’s still able to turn out a “Boots of Spanish Leather,” but is much more interesting when he gets into the surreal poetry stuff of Another Side of Bob Dylan.  Not interesting, though, is Phil Ochs’ debut, which sounds like a wan Dylan rip-off.  I think he gets more interesting later on, and I know he goes more or less off the deep end circa 1968, but for now, meh.

                Also, it sounds more or less out of time and like a 50s throwback, but “Nadine” has always been one of my favorite Chuck Berry songs.  He’s carried the 50’s rock & roll flame more consistently than Elvis, but still sounds a little old-fashioned.

                If I wanted to have an overall theme for 1964, I guess it would be that genre purism is a pretty negative force in music.  The most interesting British takes on the blues were the ones that weren’t afraid rough it up a little (Them) or mix it with pop (the Stones, less successfully the Kinks), while purism was the downfall of the Yardbirds.  Similarly, NYC folk was only interesting when Dylan was pushing the boundaries.  Also, everyone benefited from soul mixing with rock, no more clearly than at Stax.

Song of the Year:  “Wendy” – The Beach Boys.  My favorite of the early Beach Boys, just because there’s so much going on.  Also, the first time that Brian Wilson really beats Phil Spector at his own game.

Album of the Year:  A Hard Day’s Night – the Beatles.  Before going into this project, I said Beatles For Sale was my favorite of the early ones, but I think that’s just because it points to the later pop Beatles.   Hard Day, esp. in its mono incarnation, is probably the pinnacle of the early rocking Beatles, though.  To follow through on my “the Beatles are the Ramones of 1963”, this would be their Rocket to Russia.  Special mention to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, though.  Rock was still a couple of years away from getting experimental, but 60s  jazz was there already.

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Them.  Even on the basis of 2 singles, they sound so much better than all the rest of the British Invasion at playing the blues in a way that seems neither too reverential nor so far from the blues that it’s something else entirely.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  The Eric Clapton-era Yardbirds.  It says something, I guess, that the most interesting Yardbirds track with Clapton on it (“For Your Love”, from next year) was the one that made him quit out of foolish purism.  Fortunately, Jeff Beck will be along shortly.