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