Music Video Of the Week - August 23, 2024

"Nothing From Nothing" by Billy Preston  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - October 20, 2023

"Will it Go Round In Circles" by Billy Preston (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

What's Rock Got To Do With It?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, its credibility in tatters since it started inducting non-rock performers - and Madonna's induction in 2008 was a moment the Hall pole-vaulted over the shark - just inducted its 2021 class this past Saturday, October 30, and it was probably the biggest pre-Halloween joke to be broadcast since Orson Wells and the Mercury Theater presented an Americanized version of  "War Of the Worlds" on that same day in 1938.

Oh, all right, the 2021 class isn't a total waste of time.  Many worthy performers got in, and some of them were long overdue for induction. One inductee was in her eighties, which means that if you wait long enough, you'll get your due.  Except for Dave Clark Five lead singer Mike Smith, who died just before the band was inducted in 2008, a couple of years after they should have been because, in the earlier year, another act was inducted instead because it could be guaranteed to sell more tickets to the induction ceremony.

And oh yes, a couple of rappers got honored, and British bands known for their folk-based, esoteric power ballads (*cough cough*, Jethro Tull, *cough cough*, Fairport Convention, *cough cough*) did not, for various reasons (*cough cough*, political correctness, *cough cough*, rock and roll cancel culture, *cough cough*), but then there's always 2022 (*cough cough*, not on your life, *cough cough*).  

Ahh, what can you do?  We may as well call it the Popular Music Hall of Fame, the better to honor pop's diversity (*cough cough*, differences minus standards, *cough cough*)  In the meantime, let me assess each inductee:  

Tina Turner (above).  I just have one question: Why wasn't she inducted years ago?  Good grief, albums such as Private Dancer and Break Every Rule made the eighties less painful than they could have been, and "What's Love Got To Do With It?" may be (simply) the best number-one song of the past forty years.  Better late than never, and I'm happy that I don't have to refer to the late Tina Turner, if you know what I mean. 

Carole King.  Some people will suggest that Carole King doesn't belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because you can't move to her music.  Okay, "So Far Away" doesn't rock.  But those who say she's not rock enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have obviously never heard "Smackwater Jack" or "Jazzman." And some performers others may consider more rock than Carole King became famous by recording her songs.  

The Go-Go's.  They're the female Beatles.  How could they not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?  They proved that an all-female band could rock with a pop sensibility like the Beatles did, and "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We Got the Beat" were as important to rock and roll in 1981 as "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" were in 1964.  Too bad they didn't last as long; they broke up in 1985, and although they reunited later - frontwoman Belinda Carlisle had a respectable solo career in between - their early disbandment paved the way for Madonna to slam shut the very doors the Go-Go's opened for women who could play instruments and write clever songs. (Madge can do neither.)   

Jay-Z.  No.  Never!  I don't care if Barack Obama did induct him virtually!  He's a rapper, and I remain opposed to rappers crashing the rock and roll party.  Get used to further abominations like this one.  The one thing worse than another rapper being inducted would be Donald Trump inducting a guitar-rock band, but then we don't have to worry about 3 Doors Down getting in.

Foo Fighters.  Post-grunge lives!  The band Dave Grohl formed in the wake of Kurt Cobain's death and Nirvana's subsequent breakup kept the spirit of grunge alive in a more accessible form, an though some may say some of the spirit of grunge was watered down . . . well, Foo Fighters are still great, and they rock better than Maroon 5 ever could.  It's times like these you appreciate Foo Fighters. 

Todd Rundgren.  Rundgren didn't care if he never got inducted, but he still deserves it, if songs like "We Gotta Get You a Woman" (a paean to brotherly friendship), "I Saw the Light," and "Hello, It's Me" are any indication.  I'm so happy with this induction, I just want to bang on the drum all day.  

Artists given Early Influence Awards are bluesman Charley Patton and jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron, which make sense, and the German art rock band Kraftwerk, which seems to make less sense . . . mainly because they're German and they're art rockers.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has typically had no love for German music or art rock, mainly because of their overbearing whiteness, so maybe this is a way for the Hall to deflect criticism that the Scorpions and Emerson, Lake and Palmer aren't in.

The Musical Excellence Award went to three individuals, and Billy Preston was one of them.  He deserves this honor, posthumous though it may be, but honestly, why not induct him as a full-fledged Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoree?  He had two chart-topping hits in the seventies, for Pete's sake!  But an award for "musical excellence" for LL Cool J?  I think I've already said my peace on rap for this year.  As for the late Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist . . .well, I'm sure he was gifted, but a lot of those seventies and eighties metal records just didn't make sense to me. 

Kudos to the Hall for giving the Ahmet Ertegun Award for impresarios to Clarence Avant, the founder of Sussex Records - which put out Bill Withers' records - and the manger of Sarah Vaughan and Dylan producer Tom Wilson, the first black producer at Columbia Records.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was originally established to honor rock and roll performers but has since gone on to include performers representing (*cough cough*) a variety of (*cough cough*) pop styles.

The Beatles' Rooftop Concert - Fifty Years

It was fifty years ago today that the Beatles and Billy Preston performed a "rooftop concert" of their latest songs for what ultimately became the Let It Be album, atop the Apple Corps building along London's Savile Row, to be filmed for their documentary.  It was the live public performance that Paul McCartney wanted, but, except for people on adjacent rooftops and looking out at upper-floor windows windows across the street, no one got to see it.  But everyone in the whole darn West End sure could hear it.

Nothing was left to chance, a far cry from the rest of the Get Back/ Let It Be sessions.  Numerous amplifiers had to be ferried in from EMI, along with pieces of wood, tackle and rope to weigh down the wires. Tape operator Alan Parsons had to buy from a Mark's and Spencer's shop  pantyhose to place over the microphones to prevent the wind from blowing noise into them.  The day itself was a cold raw day, typical for London in January, and John Lennon and Ringo Starr had to borrow their ladies' coats to keep warm.  (The coat George Harrison wore, I assume, was his own.)

The Beatles did nine performances of five songs - "I've Got a Feeling" and Don't Let Me Down" were each performed twice, "Get Back" thrice - and the performance of "Dig a Pony," the first version of "I've Got Feeling" and their only take of "The One After 909" made the Let It Be LP.  (The version of "Get Back" that closes Let It Be is a studio performance, mixed from the same take that produced the 1969 single - with the applause at the end of the rooftop show and John Lennon's expression of gratitude crossfaded onto the end in place of Paul's spoken vocal about Loretta's mother.)  Not every performance made the accompanying film, but the movie still captures the energy and the spirit of good ol' rock and roll.  Alan Parsons calls it one of the most exciting days of his life, seeing the Beatles perform and getting feedback from the onlookers, including Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey and the rest of the crew.  One person who did not get to enjoy the concert was Glyn Johns, who stayed inside to operate as the sound man.

The Londoners who made their way through the West End may have enjoyed the concert, but the businessmen who had their offices there didn't.  As that one businessman told Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film crew, they thought the Beatles' music was enjoyable in is proper setting but not when it was disrupting the business of the area.  Sure enough, the police were called in and stopped the concert.  George Martin became worried of what might happen next.  Just before the 42-minute show concluded, the Beatles managed to get through a third version of "Get Back" - after John and George turned their amps back on when the police turned them off - and Paul improvised a new spoken lyric - "You've been playing on the roofs again . . and you know your mamma doesn't like that . . ..  Oh, she gets angry - she's gonna have you arrested!"

Paul and Ringo still wish the group had been arrested.  They thought that it would have made a perfect ending for the film. 

Still, forty-two minutes were more than the Beatles got to play in their tour concerts.  And it was a day for everyone involved to remember.  You had to be there, but if you weren't - if, say, you were only three years old and playing in the snow somewhere in New Jersey and so couldn't be there - the Let It Be film is as close as you can come.  It can't be re-released on home video soon enough. 

"I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition." - John Lennon 

 

Above is the scene of the Beatles performing "Get Back" in the Let It Be film - the first two versions edited together. It was my Music Video of the Week for the fiftieth anniversary, but I've decided to keep it for posterity by including it here, as it's hard to find these days.

The Beatles Get Back

It was fifty years ago this month that the Beatles embarked on their ill-fated Get Back project, from which the Let It Be album emerged.  Originally Paul McCartney's effort to rejuvenate the group and to get his bandmates to rediscover the joys of playing live, it instead accelerated the group's disbandment.

After the White Album sessions proved that the Beatles were growing apart, as they were always fighting over what would be recorded, Paul suggested that the group return to live performance and to basic rock and roll and acoustic music by staging a concert comprised of new songs that would be aired globally on live TV.  The concert would be recorded and the resulting LP - to be called Get Back - would be released as a followup to the White Album. 

So, on January 2, 1969, the Beatles assembled at Twickenham Film Studios on London to rehearse new songs as well as some old ones for the show.  Paul had arranged for Michael Lindsay-Hogg - fresh from having filmed the Rolling Stones' own ill-fated TV special, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" - to film the rehearsals for a TV documentary about the concert.  The group then set about choosing songs for the concert.  

There never was a concert, of course.  John Lennon was so stoned on heroin at the time that it could be argued that playing interfered with his drug taking.  George Harrison, tired of not being taken seriously by John and sick of being pestered by Paul, quit the group eight days into the rehearsals, never having been in favor of a live show in the first place.  He returned a few days later on the condition that they scrap the concert idea.  The other Beatles agreed, and Paul - now the leader of the group in the wake of John's withdrawal and Brian Epstein's death - quickly adapted by suggesting that they record their new songs, along with some possible covers, live in the studio - with no overdubbing - with Lindsay-Hogg's cameras documenting that as well.  The film footage from the Twickenham rehearsals and recording sessions would later become the third movie they owed United Artists, after A Hard Day's Night and Help!; Yellow Submarine didn't count because of their minimal involvement in it.  The group quickly repaired to their new studio - Apple Studio, in the West End of London, built by Apple Corps' electronic "expert" Alexis "Magic Alex" Mardas - but it turned out that the studio itself needed repairing.

It was on this day fifty years ago, January 22, 1969, that the Beatles began recording songs for what became Let It Be.  They had actually planned to start two days earlier, but the studio Mardas had built with them was totally amateurish.  The mixing board was haphazardly built and put together with bits of wood and metal, and it only produced hiss and hum.  (It was later sold for scrap for five pounds, or about twelve American dollars.)  To makes matters worse, Mardas had forgotten to put soundproofing on the walls, which meant that the hum from the heating vents could be heard on recordings.  So the group had to borrow from EMI a mixing board and soundproofing material, along with other equipment, in order to make a proper record.  George Martin was still producing the Beatles, but he'd become passive as the Beatles gained more control over their output.  The great engineer and producer Glyn Johns - fresh from having co-produced Family's second album - was on board as an engineer for the Get Back project and more or less assumed a production role.  And joining the group to provide a fifth instrument was Billy Preston on keyboards.  The Beatles had known Preston since 1962, when he was Little Richard's organist and they got to meet Little Richard in Liverpool during one of his European tours.  George Harrison saw Preston perform with Ray Charles in London in early 1969 and met up with him, inviting him to come down to the Apple studio at Savile Row.

For the next ten days, the Beatles and Billy Preston played several new songs and a few rock and roll covers, jammed a bit, and continued rehearsing songs, taping everything.  (The rehearsals at Twickenham were recorded for the film soundtrack but not for disc, though those recordings have been the source of several bootleg albums.) Preston's enthusiasm and Johns' professionalism helped moved the project along, as did the adulation of their crew's resident fan - tape operator Alan Parsons, who would later be the engineer for Pink Floyd and for the Hollies and would become a recording artist himself with his group, the Alan Parsons Project.  Thanks to Preston's input, they came up with the perfect rendition of the intended title song - "Get Back" - with a keyboard solo that Preston always took credit for.

Eventually, though, Paul got his show - an outdoor performance on the rooftop of the Apple building, on January 30, 1969.  The Beatles thought it would be a blast to play some of their new songs for the pedestrian crowds on the avenues and streets of the West End.  Those lucky enough to see the show from adjacent rooftops and office buildings appreciated the show, and so did passersby at the ground level who could at least hear the music. ("Nice to have something for free in this country, isn't it?" one man told one of Lindsay-Hogg's film crews.)  The Beatles managed to tape the bulk of what became the Let It Be album in both this performance and in a studio performance of their quieter numbers a day later.  (The album and movie were eventually renamed Let It Be, after Paul's ballad about his mother, because by the time both were ready for release in the spring of 1970, the song "Get Back" had been on release for a year and so was inappropriate to be used as the theme of a "new" Beatles project.)  

The great irony of the Beatles' efforts is that the movie and the record depicted a band whose members had grown apart form each other and were ready to move on, even as they tried to get into the music.  Despite Preston, Johns and Parsons egging them on, the Beatles later admitted that, for them, the Get Back/Let It Be project was, as John later recalled them, "the most miserable session on earth."  The Beatles would have to violate their no-overdubbing rule to make the tapes sound better.  It took so long to make a presentable album out of the tapes that Glyn Johns failed twice in his efforts to make a Get Back album, and finally Phil Spector was brought in to make Let It Be shortly thereafter.

For a moment, though, on that cold, windy roof, the Beatles found their groove.  After the rooftop concert - cut short, incredibly enough, by policemen sent to end the show after complaints from people in neighboring office buildings - an audiotape caught the Beatles and George Martin taking pride in the performance, with the group discussing possible shows for the future.  It would have been something, seeing and hearing the Beatles play live again in places like Earl's Court in London or Madison Square Garden in New York after a long hiatus from the concert stage.  But it was a mirage.  For all of their efforts to regain the magic of the old days, the Beatles never would get back to where they once belonged.     

Music Video Of the Week - August 12, 2011

"Nothing From Nothing" by Billy Preston (Go to the link in the upper right hand corner.)

The Concert For Bangla Desh - Forty Years Later

I saw today, for the first time ever, the documentary film of the Concert For Bangla Desh documentary film forty years to the day after the original concert in New York's Madison Square Garden. It's probably one of the finest concerts - and the greatest benefit concert - in rock and roll history. George Harrison organized it in response to a plea for help from his friend, Indian musician and sitar master Ravi Shankar, whose father was born in Bangladesh (now one word), when the country than known as East Pakistan was fighting for independence from Pakistan proper. The India-Pakistan war that resulted was an embarrassment for the Nixon administration, as I recall - they backed Pakistan, the ultimate loser - but Bangladesh lost a great deal even after winning its independence. The humanitarian crisis that resulted was beyond comprehension, and Shankar hoped that his Beatle buddy Harrison could help do something about it.

Harrison did not disappoint, bringing together some of the greatest rock and roll musicians of the time (and all time, in many instances) for a pair of concerts in which some mighty fine music was generated. Concertgoers supported a good cause with the price of admission to either the afternoon or evening show and got Leon Russell performing a medley of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the Coasters' "Young Blood;" Billy Preston offering up his tune "That's the Way God Planned It;" Ringo Starr (the only other Beatle in the show) performing "It Don't Come Easy," his big hit at the time; and Harrison performing solo and Beatles tunes. And this all-star band included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, and Taj Mahal guitarist Jesse Ed Davis.

But the biggest surprise for the audience was Bob Dylan, then making few public appearances - coming onstage to sing classics such as "Blowin' In the Wind" and "Just Like a Woman" with Harrison and Russell backing him on guitar and bass, respectively - and backing vocals. Magic!

The Concerts for Bangla Desh were far more focused, musically and philanthropically, than many other benefit concerts. It targeted a specific cause for relief in a specific place. And unlike Live Aid, which tried to be all things to all people by offering a sixteen-hour revue of popular performers that suggested quantity more than quality (what was Duran Duran doing at that show, anyway), the Bangla Desh shows had a small list of like-minded musicians for whom the music mattered as much as the cause. (After all, the shows started off with Ravi Shankar and his group Indian musicians playing a disciplined form of music that required attention and concentration to listen to as well as play.) George Harrison didn't try to draw more people by inviting the Osmonds to take part, did he?

Although it took more than a decade for the proceeds from the concert to make it to Bangladesh, it was still a success on balance. Money from record and video sales has continued to go to relief for what is still a very poor country. And they need it.

Learn more by going here.