So 1971
seems to be a banner year for two things: live albums and AM radio-style soft
rock. For the former, we get double live
albums from the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash,
& Young, the triple-album George Harrison & Friends Concert for
Bangladesh, a Traffic live album, and Mountain mimicking Cream some more with a
half-live/half-studio breakup album, plus archival live concerts from both Led
Zeppelin and Neil Young. And none of
them, except the CSNY and Traffic ones, feel like contractual-obligation
filler. Well, maybe the Mountain one
feels like they lacked enough studio tracks, but considering the live half is
both really good and a chance to hear “Mississippi Queen” again, I won’t
complain. But the Grateful Dead one
(their 2nd official live album) sounds much more like the “classic”
rootsy live Dead sound they’d work variations on for the next few decades than
the much more psychedelic Live/Dead
from ’69. For my money, they hit their live
peak next year, but it’s by deepening the formula already in place here, of
rootsy originals and covers, mixed with some extended live improvisation, and
all generally keeping with the vibe of last year’s twin studio classics. The best of the ’71 live albums, however, is
to my mind without question the Allman Brothers’ Live At The Fillmore. I’ve
heard it compared more to jazz improvisation than anything else going on in
rock, and while the Dead would develop a similar simpatico relationship in
their jams, they only rarely brought the high-energy intensity that the Allmans
sustain over 4 LP sides. Similarly, the
Who could bring a similar focused intensity, but only in a much more structured
fashion, and without nearly the success at improvisation. All the sadder that Duane Allman dies in
1971, leaving this as his absolute peak, and the rest of the band’s as
well.
The Concert for Bangladesh is worth noting,
if only for the uncanny parallels between Harrison and Bob Dylan this
year. Both go from a massive dump of
material last year (although Harrison’s was of much higher quality than
Dylan’s) to this year releasing a lone studio single (Harrison’s “Bangla Desh,”
Dylan’s “George Jackson”) and their respective sets from the Concert for
Bangladesh. That concert itself is
pretty good, but apart from Ravi Shankar’s Indian classical, nothing is
especially a revelation live. We also
don’t get a lot of material from Neil Young.
In fact, we get no new studio material, and only his contribution to the
CSNY live album actually released in ’71, although his 2007 Massey Hall solo
acoustic concert shows that he definitely had more material in the works. We actually do hear a fair amount of Neil
Young in the studio though, as well as members of the Dead, and miscellaneous
other LA/San Fran players on a mess of albums released as solo records, all
backed by a rotating cast of folk-rockers.
Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than David Crosby’s album, which has
some very identifiable Neil Young and Jerry Garcia lead guitar parts. It’s also an album that rocks a lot harder
than I remember it, since I normally associate Crosby as the hazy hippie-folk
guy in CSN (i.e. the Crosby of “Guinevere” and “Déjà vu”), and undoubtedly one of the
best CSN solo records. On the other
hand, I don’t own any other Nash solo records, and I don’t really care for the
Hollies, but I’ll be damned if Songs For
Beginners isn’t my favorite CSN solo album (excluding Young). It definitely doesn’t rock like Crosby’s, but
it’s just so melodic and catchy, and just makes me feel happy. Liz can testify that it’s my default Sunday
morning record.
It’s
also, I admit, the kind of record that you can point to as where the West Coast
folk-rock scene tipped into ‘70s soft rock.
Still, as mellow gold records go, they don’t get much mellower or more
golden than Carole King’s Tapestry,
which I won’t heap praise on the way I do Songs
For Beginners, but doesn’t sound terribly removed from the LA folk-rock of
CSN and the Byrds and the like and is a very well-constructed record. This really shouldn’t be much of a surprise,
since (in this way and no other) Carole King is like Isaac Hayes, one of those
artists who wrote all sorts of pop hits for others before stepping out as a
solo artist in the early ‘70s.
The solo efforts from John and Paul
also fit well in to the great mellowing of ’71.
For Paul, this isn’t too much of a surprise, as he’s basically just
continuing the same pop experimentation he’s been doing since ’67 or so. John’s more all over the map, having
basically abandoned the stark, at times Stooges-like sound of Plastic Ono Band. It’s too simplistic to say that John’s simply
turned to a soft-rock sound, although tracks like “Jealous Guy” and “Oh Yoko!”
sound appropriate next to Carole King and Graham Nash. I feel I need to re-emphasize that saying it’s
soft rock is by no means a slam, whatever I might have said in high school. “Oh Yoko!,” for instance, is one of my all-time
favorite John songs. It’s more that, for
me at least, hard rock can get by without being particularly clever if it’s got
enough energy, so I can appreciate a lot of pretty generic-sounding hard
rock. I can only stomach soft rock if it’s
especially catchy and clever, otherwise
I get bored really quickly, and therefore loathe the generic-sounding
version. This, in turn, means that there’s
a lot of hard rock I like well-enough, but that most soft-rock I actively
despise, since the worst sin in music is being boring. Anyway, Lennon is by no means just a
soft-rocker this year, though, as he’s got tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Be A
Soldier” and “It’s So Hard.” He is kind
of a jerk though, in that faux-apologetic “I know I’m a jerk, but I’m admitting
it, which makes me a sensitive jerk, and therefore it’s ok for me to keep being
a jerk” kinda way. See “Jealous Guy” for
a prime example of this. Also, Ringo put
out a fantastic single this year: the goofy “It Don’t Come Easy.” It would have
sounded perfect as the lone Ringo track on a hypothetical ’71 Beatles album.
This soft-rock tone does kinda set
the mood for a lot of stuff released in ’71.
Rod Stewart, for instance, splits his efforts between sounding like a
b-list version of the Rolling Stones and mining a softer folk-rock sound himself. Curiously, it’s not simply that Rod solo is
soft-rock, and the Faces are hard-rock, but rather it’s all mixed
together. Of course, it’s a year when
even the glam rock sounds of T. Rex sound pretty mellow for the most part,
riding an easy boogying groove. Marc
Bolan’s still pretty much the only major glam artist at this point, though. Mott The Hoople are still decidedly b-team,
and Bowie sounds more like the Small Faces circa 1968 than anything else, with
a very music-hall kind of sound. He also
sounds more like the Small Faces than the (regular-sized?) Faces themselves do
at this point. What he definitely has
abandoned however, is the progressive sound he toyed with on The Man Who Sold the World, although
having Rick Wakeman play keys on Hunky
Dory doesn’t hurt in prog-cred terms.
Speaking of bands that used to work
in the music-hall style, the Kinks have deepened substantially the rootsy vein
they opened last year. Muswell Hillbillies is definitely their
“American roots-rock” album, even if they stamp their decidedly unique vision
on it (and offer, in the title track, the first of Ray Davies’ many songs about
gentrification). In the sense that it’s
Brits mining American roots sounds, it’s not so far removed from what the Faces
and the Stones are doing, although the Kinks certainly have their own take on
it. What the Kinks do share with the
Stones, though, is that neither of them is part of the soft-rock trend that the
Faces dabble in and overtakes a lot of the Americans. In fact, Sticky
Fingers might be the most-rockin’ of all the Stones albums. It also is far too limiting to say that it’s
a roots-rock album. Much like Let It Bleed, on Sticky Fingers the Stones are drawing from a lot of sources. Rock & roll & blues, obviously, but
also country on the excellent “Dead Flowers” and “Wild Horses” (stolen back
from the Flying Burrito Brothers, whose first post-Parsons album is released
this year but I don’t own it). Also there’s
the Southern rock-Santana fusion of “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’,” and a song
that I’d overlooked before, “I’ve Got the Blues.” It really sounds like the Stones have been
listening to a lot of what came out of Memphis recently, both insofar as it
sounds like something Isaac Hayes could have written and absolutely like
something Elvis in his Memphis period could have released. Elvis himself, incidentally, comes to the end
of his run of great albums, with Elvis
Country, which shows that Elvis too has been listening to a lot of what’s
going on around him, especially what’s happening in the world of outlaw country
(and heck, he covers Willie Nelson).
It’s still all very produced, but it shows how much Elvis emerged in a
period when the difference between country and the blues was basically
nonexistent musically that he sounds as comfortable singing Stax-style soul as
he does singing circa 1971 country.
Also, “I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water” is worth noting for the way in
which it fuses Stax-style horns with a country/southern rock style melody. Really, it sounds like something the Stones
would do.
It is interesting to compare the
Stones to Led Zeppelin this year. Not
only do both release what is possibly their career-best album, but both albums
showcase how much they’ve been listening to what’s been going on around them. For the Stones, this means
country and soul, but for Zep, it’s a heap of Fairport-style English folk-rock,
esp. on “Going to California” and “Battle of Evermore,” itself featuring
ex-Fairport vocalist Sandy Denny, the rare guest musician on a Zeppelin studio
recording. It also means prog-rock, on
the very King Crimson sounding (at least in the beginning) “Stairway to
Heaven.” And, of course, there’s a bunch
of rock & roll and blues, and here’s where it’s interesting to directly
compare the Stones and Zeppelin, and especially (for instance) their respective
rock & roll attempts (for instance “Rock & Roll” and “Bitch”). What it really shows is that the Stones know
how to give their music hips, while Zeppelin swings like Englishmen who like gentle
folk music and prog rock. It does mean
that “Rock & Roll” is the first of many Zeppelin genre experiments where it
took me years of listening to figure out that they were trying to do a genre
experiment, as opposed to just making another Zep rocker. On the other hand, it also means that
Zeppelin can do a song with the big pounding sound of “When the Levee Breaks,”
which I don’t think the Stones could ever match. Of course, circa 1971, probably the only
other band that really could is Sabbath, who also put out a career record themselves. Unlike the Stones and Zep, though, there’s
not a lot of genre diversity going on on Master
of Reality, which is practically a concept album about Tony Iommi’s
newfound guitar tone (and Jesus).
Another band which seems worth
comparing to Zeppelin is Jethro Tull, who also started out as a blues band,
before getting fascinated by prog and folk.
Aqualung doesn’t sound much
like Zep, of course, although it’s working with a lot of the same
prog/folk/rock elements. Tull sound like
they have a lot more to say lyrically than Zeppelin, of course. (As an aside, between Ian Anderson’s concept
album about religion, Sabbath’s gonzo-Christian-rock, and Lennon’s “God” and “Imagine”,
1970-71 was apparently a peak period for songs about religion.) Anyway, Tull sound more like Zep than
anything else happening in the world of prog, which is starting to drift far
more into long-form song construction than Tull are at this point. Still, it’s a very good year for prog, where
both Yes and Pink Floyd produce their first albums in their classic
sounds. Their respective albums from
last year offered big hints that they were almost there, but it’s still
impressive how much more confident each sound this year, being much more
willing to risk long-form experiments that actually work. (also, Yes’s Fragile came out in ’71 in the UK, but ’72 in the US: itunes dated
it as ’72, which I didn’t’ realize until just before this went up, so while
normally I’d talk about it here, I’ll instead throw in under ’72). Crimson also release an album this year, but
while I listened to it only yesterday, and don’t remember disliking what I
heard, I remember virtually nothing about it.
There’s a reason a 3 year gap in my Crimson discography begins now, I
guess.
The biggest genre innovation this
year, or at least the one I get most excited about, however, is neither prog’s
breakthrough nor soft-rock’s: it’s the emergence of funk as a distinct
genre. Obviously there were things
earlier that you could point to as funk or proto-funk, especially by James
Brown or Sly & The Family Stone, but heard in context they really just
sounded like part of soul, and not a distinct genre. That is no longer the case by ’71. Not only is James Brown getting deeper and
longer in his grooves, but the biggest developments are probably Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain and Sly & the Family
Stone’s There’s A Riot Going On. The first builds on Funkadelic’s psychedelic
stuff from last year, but grounds it in a more solid groove, creating the
spaced-out but danceable template for much of what came after. As for Sly & the Family, they’re worlds
away from the optimistic rock-soul of “You Can Make It IF You Try,” and while
there’s been a lot of ink spilled on the lyrical turn, what’s more interesting
to me is how they’re much more narrowly focused on a tight hard funk
groove. Also, it’s probably worth noting
that Isaac Hayes too shifts to funk, with Shaft,
as does Miles Davis on my favorite of his fusion-period records, A Tribute to Jack Johnson. Santana also has moved more into a funk
sound, although it’s not so radically different from what they did before. Sadly, I apparently left my copy of their
next album up at my mom’s, so I won’t be able to talk about their turn to
fusion in much detail.
Of course, soul is still going in
its own way, where the biggest development is probably Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, the first major
statement of Gaye as more than just a part of the Motown stable of artists,
with his own unique (though soon imitated) sound. It’s really pretty comparable to Van
Morrison’s shift from the more formula (but still excellent) blues-rock of Them
to the atmospheric but tightly constructed sound of Astral Weeks. What’s Going On is lyrically much more focused on real-world
concerns than the flights of fancy of Van’s album, but they’re similar insofar
as both are in fact song-based, but songs of such spontaneous-sounding yet
deliberate construction that you can’t really hear (or want to hear) anyone
else try to perform them. Outside of
Marvin, a lot of what’s going on in soul is less revolutionary and more
evolutionary. Al Green is here, but
sounds like a natural continuation of the Memphis/Stax sound. Stevie Wonder continues his relatively slow
evolution (though since he’s still only 20, I’ll cut him some slack). The rest of Motown shows how little that
sound evolved. The things that, for
instance, Michael Jackson is doing in 1971 sound pretty close to what Diana
Ross was doing in 1965. Great songs, but
not revolutionary. I should pause to
give a shout-out to the Temptations, who are deep in their psychedelic soul
sound. Like Marvin, they’re lost in
their own world, but unlike Marvin, their sound produces a lot fewer imitators,
sadly.
A couple of outliers from the LA
rock scene deserve some note. While the
rest of LA moves toward a soft rock-folk rock sound, the Doors and the Beach
Boys are off in their own musical universes.
The Beach Boys haven’t become a hard rock band or anything, but their
sound is a lot less folk-derived and a lot more bleak than what, for instance,
the CSN conglomerate are up to. For my
money, Surf’s Up is the Beach Boy’s
finest post-Pet Sounds album, even if
it’s got some really dumb songs by the non-Wilson members, and even if its best
track (“Surf’s Up”) is a SMiLE
remnant. It also has Carl’s excellent
attempt at Brian’s sound (“Feel Flows”) and Brian’s “Till I Die,” which is both
magnificent and magnificently sad in its ability to capture his despair. The Doors, meanwhile, put out what I think is
their best album by mixing the blues-rock sound of Morrison Hotel with the dark poetry approach of their first
couple. The result is more distinctive
than the sometimes-generic Morrison
Hotel, but also easier to take seriously than the sometimes over-the-top
sound of The Doors and Strange Days. Maybe because it’s hard to pull off an L.A. Woman without a vocalist of Jim
Morisson’s caliber, but while the Doors were tremendously influential (mostly
on the goths), it wasn’t for this sound.
Although it doesn’t sound too much different from what John Lee Hooker’s
up to this year, which to my continued amazement sounds exactly like what he’s been putting out since 1948. I guess you don’t mess with a sound that
good…
Song of the Year: “Whipping Post”- The Allman Brothers. In the run-up to 1971, this was the song I
was most excited to listen to, and it did not disappoint.
Album of
the Year: I suppose it has to be
either Sticky Fingers or Led Zeppelin IV, although there’s a part
of me that wants to toss it to Songs For
Beginners. Ultimately, though, I
give the nod to Zeppelin. The Stones are
very very good, but I still like Let It
Bleed better. Zeppelin, however,
have outdone their previous efforts with this one.
Artist Most
Benefiting from Reevaluation: Elvis
Presley. I always kind of assumed that
Elvis in Memphis was the end of worthwhile Elvis, but I was wrong. Elvis
Country sounds as good as any Elvis album, and is good enough to make me
think I need to pick up more of Elvis’s ‘70s stuff. We’ll see if his less-than-stellar ’72 album
disabuses me of that notion, though…
Artist Most
Diminished in Reevaluation: Traffic,
I think. Their live album is just
ok. Their studio album (The Low Spark of High Heel Boys) does
pursue a somewhat interesting prog-jazz-rock direction, but it’s also a step
down from last year, and apart from the title track, not all that compelling.
Album List
Al Green - The Absolute Best
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Past Lives
Bob Dylan - George Jackson
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
Can - Tago Mago
Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band -
Express Yourself: The Best Of Charles Wright
Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) - Carry On
David Bowie - Changesbowie
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
David Crosby – If Only I Could Remember My Name
Deep Purple - The Very Best Of Deep Purple
Dennis Alcapone - Guns Don't Argue
Electric Light Orchestra - Strange Magic: The Best Of
Electric Light Orchestra
Elton John - Greatest Hits 1970-2002
Elvis Presley - Elvis Country
Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis
Elvis Presley - The Memphis Record
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
George Harrison - The Best Of George Harrison
George Harrison – The Concert for Bangladesh
Graham Nash – Songs for Beginners
Isaac Hayes - Greatest Hits Singles
James Brown - 20 All Time Greatest Hits!
James Brown - Make It Funky: 1971-75
James Brown - The Big Payback: 1971-1975
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Jethro Tull - Original Masters
John Lee Hooker - The Ultimate Collection 1948-1990
John Lennon - Imagine
John Lennon - Imagine Soundtrack
Joni Mitchell – Blue
Joni Mitchell - Hits
King Crimson – Islands
Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin - Wedding Songs
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Inner Mounting Flame
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Merle Haggard - HAG: The Best Of Merle Haggard
Michael Jackson - The Essential Michael Jackson
Miles Davis - A Tribute To Jack Johnson
Mott The Hoople - An Introduction To Mott The Hoople
Mott The Hoople – Rock n Roll Queen
Mountain – Flowers of Evil
Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall 1971
Os Mutantes - Everything Is Possible!: The Best Of Os
Mutantes
Osibisa – Woyaya
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ozzman Cometh
Paul McCartney - Wingspan: History
Paul McCartney - Wingspan: Hits
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Ringo Starr - Photograph: The Very Best Of Ringo Starr
Rod Stewart & The Faces - Gold
Rod Stewart & The Faces - The Best Of Faces: Good Boys
When They're Asleep
Santana – Santana (III)
Shirley Collins & The Albion Country Band - No Roses
Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The
Family Stone
Stevie Wonder - At The Close Of A Century
T. Rex - 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection
T. Rex – Electric Warrior
The Allman Brothers – Live At the Fillmore
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach
Boys
The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up
The Byrds - VI: Final Approach
The Doors – L.A. Woman
The Ethiopians - Everything Crash: The Best of The
Ethiopians
The Grateful Dead – The Grateful Dead
The Kinks - Celluloid Heroes
The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies
The Kinks - Percy
The Kinks - The Kink Kronikles
The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks
The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
The Staple Singers - The Staple Swingers
The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of The Staple Singers
The Temptations - Psychedelic Soul
The Who - Pete Townshend - Lifehouse Elements
The Who - The Ultimate Collection
Traffic – The Low Spark of High Heel Boys
Traffic - Welcome To The Canteen
V/A - Beleza Tropical: Brazil Classics 1
V/A - Hitsville U.S.A.
V/A - Kill Bill, Vol. 1
V/A - Pure Funk
V/A - Reservoir Dogs
V/A - Rushmore
V/A - Samba Soul 70!
Yes - The Yes Album
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