Author Archives: Steve Matteo

Country music went through a seismic change beginning in the mid-to late-1960s, that culminated in the explosion of what was called the “outlaw” movement in the mid-1970s. The movement was primarily spearheaded by folks like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others, even though many of them, Nelson and Jennings included, had been around for a long time.

This change in country music was also affected by the emergence of folk and rock artists who used country as part of their sound or in some cases whose music was directly impacted by the counterculture. Kris Kristofferson could also had been categorized as a key component of this group, but two artists who were also part of the scene, while taking divergent seminal paths, came together for a brief time in the earlier part of the ’70s to make a music all their own. They were Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Parsons died not long after his second solo album in 1973, and that album was helped greatly by Harris, who is still going strong today.

The story really begins with Parsons who must be considered the father of country rock for his work leading the International Submarine Band, who released their one and only album, Safe at Home, in 1968. He was also a key player in the first mainstream country rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo with The Byrds, which was also released in 1968. That would be his one and only album with The Byrds, before he and fellow-Byrd Chris Hillman departed to form the Flying Burrito Brothers with Sneaky Pete Kleinow and Chris Ethridge in 1969 with their debut album The Gilded Palace of Sin.

Parsons would only record one more album with the group, Burrito Deluxe, in 1970, which also included new members Bernie Leadon and Michael Clark, the former drummer with The Byrds. Chris Etheridge had left the group and did not appear on that album.

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There has probably been no other rock music artist who has had more of their music released posthumously than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix died in September of 1970 and since his death the music he made in his short life has been issued and reissued in many formats and in many ways.

For many years, under the official label of Experience Hendrix, his family has done a respectful job in putting out his music, chosen wisely in what unreleased music to put out and conceived projects that add greatly to our knowledge and understanding of what may be rock music’s greatest guitar player.

Hendrix was mercurial and mysterious and his music was not easily definable. These projects have helped round out the story and the untrodden road that Hendrix traveled. This new project, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, doesn’t so much elucidate a particular side, or foremost time period of his music, as shine a light on the legendary recording studio he conceived and owned.

Electric Lady Studios was originally to be a performance space. That’s what it was when Hendrix and his manager Mike Jeffery bought it in 1968 when, after its initial incarnation as the Village Barn, it was named the Generation. It was located in downtown Manhattan in Greenwich Village and was an eclectic venue that hosted a variety of musical styles.

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Few pop music artists to emerge in the 1960s were more controversial, intelligent, funny, prescient, and just plain far out as Frank Zappa. As a guitar God who never took that pose seriously, who introduced jazz, classical, avant-garde, and cabaret on acid theatrics into his indescribable live act and recordings, nearly everything Zappa did in the ’60s and 1970s still sounds light years ahead of anything made today. At that time, Zappa skewered not only the fake post-’50s fat cats and plastic people, but himself and the so-called hippies who loved his music.

Zappa’s early records with the Mothers of Invention are unhinged freak-outs of sound and (bongo) fury. While serving up blistering critiques of the phoniness of both middle America and the power elite, the humor which with Zappa infused his bizarre music made it all the more lovable and just plain fun.

Along with The Fugs, The Holy Modal Rounders, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and a handful of others, Zappa, solo and with the Mothers, sought to poke twisted barbs of ridicule at all that was fake, mean, and phony. Unlike the others, Zappa was not a member of the underground drug culture and didn’t even drink. While his appearance was counterculture, his approach was counterintuitive.

Zappa recorded for Verve and his music was later distributed by Warner Brothers during the ’60s into the ’70s. While no major record label in the world would touch Zappa today, those days of rage allowed iconoclasts like Zappa to have a sandbox in which to blow up cultural bombs. By the time we get to Apostrophe, Zappa’s sixth solo album (not to mention 12 further albums he made with the Mothers), he had built up a rabid following and the counterculture of young people had become a demographic behemoth, propelling the album to gold sales status.

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Brit Nick Lowe was one of the most beloved, talented, and versatile figures of the punk/new wave explosion of the late-’70s. Oddly, he really wasn’t punk or new wave, but an artist who emerged during that scene in the wake of the pub rock, post-’60s scene in England as a member of Brinsley Schwarz (with Schwarz, Ian Gomm, Billy Rankin, and Bob Andrews).

Lowe was a roots rocker at heart who occasionally dipped his toe into psychedelia, but was most at home with pure pop, even naming the American version of his solo debut album Pure Pop For Now People, released in 1978. Lowe was also and still is an accomplished record producer, most notably for Elvis Costello and The Pretenders. He was part of the group Rockpile (with Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams) while simultaneously producing and releasing solo albums. Later he would be in another supergroup, Little Village (with John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner). He is also a prolific songwriter.

Lowe’s last solo album was The Old Magic released in 2011. He released a holiday album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family, in 2013. That resume barely scratches the surface and doesn’t even mention the other singles, EPs, live albums, and contributions he’s made to other people’s work and appearances on a plethora of tribute albums. Indoor Safari is his second with Los Straightjackets, the mysterious, Tennessee-based instrumental band, after their debut together Walkabout in 2020. It’s filled with the kind of rootsy simplicity and charm we’ve come to expect from Lowe.

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David Gilmour, formerly of Pink Floyd, doesn’t make many solo albums. He made one while the first post-Syd Barrett incarnation of Pink Floyd was still together in 1978, one in 1984, which was one year after that lineup’s last album, and then didn’t record another solo album until 2006. The next one was in 2015.

This new one, like all his previous solo albums, is more than worth the wait. Few artists who began their careers in the 1960s and who are releasing new albums these days have made a record this good. While still reflecting the sound (both vocally and musically) that fans of Gilmour most love, this new album is something truly new and fresh. The most striking thing about the album is how understated the music is and how, other than in the moments where orchestration is added, the instrumentation is minimal and very organic.

Naturally, this is a very guitar-heavy recording, with Gilmour’s iconic guitar sound prevalent throughout. Rob Gentry’s tasteful synths and keyboards are subtly a major part of the sound, with Roger Eno contributing keyboards to the album opener “Black Cat” and Gilmour’s late, ex-bandmate from Pink Floyd Richard Wright, playing keyboards on the title cut, which was taken from a jam at Gilmour’s home in 2007. Other notable musicians who contributed to the album include Guy Pratt and Steve Gadd.

Gilmour’s wife Polly Sampson wrote most of the lyrics, which often deal with growing older, but which are very complex, nuanced, and in no way morose. There is a cover of “Between Two Points,” from The Montgolfier Brothers, with Romany Gilmour on vocals and harp, who also performs backing vocals on the album. Both Romany Gilmour and Gabriel Gilmour, two of his children with Sampson, contribute to the album.

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John Lennon would have been 84 years old on October 9th. It’s hard to believe that the Mind Games album from John Lennon was only his fourth proper solo album at the time of its release in 1973 and he would only release two more studio albums of original music in his lifetime. Rock ‘n’ Roll was a cover album of oldies released in 1975 and Milk and Honey was a posthumous follow-up to Double Fantasy released in 1984. His last solo album, Double Fantasy, released in 1980, and Milk and Honey were actually collaboration albums with his wife Yoko Ono. Taking the point even further, the double-album Some Time in New York City, released in 1972, contains one album of original songs and one album of live material recorded with, among others, Ono, George Harrison, and Frank Zappa.

Mind Games was written and recorded very much in reaction to the poor reception the heavily political Some Time in New York City album received. That album was a ragged political broadside that read and looked like a newspaper. This was Lennon, and also Ono, at their most political. While Plastic Ono Band was more about the personal, Some Time in New York City was more outward looking, although it did have its personal moments.

The Mind Games album is more in the vein of Imagine, but without Phil Spector producing, and with Lennon primarily producing himself, it doesn’t quite have the weight or majesty of Imagine. It does, however, still have its political moments, is an album where Lennon was clearly enjoying himself, and contains songs of Lennon’s love for Ono that were filled with a sweet, often understated charm. While the key songs are the title track “Nutopian International Anthem” and even “Meat City,” which on the outtakes disc is presented as a long take, the love songs on the album offer another side of Lennon in this post-political period.

Previous boxes of the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums have already been released. The Lennon estate has chosen to skip over what was the next album in Lennon’s catalog—Some Time in New York City—and instead release at this time the more accessible Mind Games. While it is understandable from various perspectives to release Mind Games now, let’s hope Some Time In New York City at some point does receive a full deluxe-edition release.

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The John Lennon estate has been releasing deluxe reissues of his solo albums. Plastic Ono Band and Imagine have been released so far and now comes Mind Games. Each series, presented in various formats, is complemented by an expansive coffee-table book.

The Mind Games album actually came out in 1973 after the album Sometime in New York, which came out in 1972. That album was skipped over and there is no official word on if it will eventually receive the same treatment of the three albums mentioned above.

This Mind Games book serves several purposes. It is a companion to the recently released Mind Games audio and video reissue series. It expands on the beautiful hardcover book that comes with the Mind Games “Cube” and deluxe editions. It’s a sumptuous coffee-table book, from one of the premier coffee-table book publishers in the world and therefore, along with being read, it can be pulled off the shelf and dipped into and enjoyed just for the pictures, art, photography, graphics and aesthetics alone. It’s also a very important work of reference for Lennon and Beatles scholars given the depth and fulsomeness of the information. The level of detail reaches an encyclopedic, historical, journalistic and you-are-there documentary diary level.

The book reflects Lennon’s time in New York with Yoko and is often a detailed chronicle of their life, art, and work. It was obviously very important for John to chronicle everything, in almost documentary form. Forms would actually be more accurate. Both Lennon and Yoko Ono were pioneers of multi-media. Few people other than Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol were as adept at and naturally comfortable with understanding and creating media in so many different formats, while simultaneously chronicling their efforts, although McLuhan was more of a media theorist, than creator.

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The music on this double album and six-song EP package was intended as a companion to a planned television special from Paul McCartney & Wings in 1974. Although the film was eventually released as part of the Archive series of Band On the Run in 2010 and some of these tracks have appeared on various releases, this is the first time the music has been released in full on any audio format.

The recordings took place over four days at Abbey Road studios in August of 1974, when Band On The Run was riding high on the charts. The lineup for Wings at that time included McCartney, his wife Linda and Denny Laine, who would make up the core of the band for its entire run. The other core band musicians for this lineup were Jimmy McCulloch on guitar and Geoff Britton on drums. Also included are Howie Casey on saxophone and the Tuxedo Brass Band. Legendary and prolific arranger Del Newman was the orchestral arranger.

The various audio formats for this project were released in June of this year and the film received its theatrical release in August. These live-in-the-studio type releases can be a mixed bag or a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes they just sound like lifeless and sterile, undercooked live concerts without the benefit of well-mixed or produced studio recordings and of course a live audience. That is not the case here.

Even though there is no live studio audience, these performances crackle with rock muscle and offer slightly unique renderings of the more stripped-down songs. It’s incredible how some of the performances that benefited from the polish of the studio versions work perfectly here live. It’s so obvious that everyone is having a grand old time and the band is tight and in top form. It’s hard to imagine what it was like being there in the cavernous studio three for those four magical days. McCartney no doubt purposely recorded in studio three to get a big live sound but to also avoid studio two and all of the baggage that came with it at that time, as it was where The Beatles recorded most of their music.

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Bill Wyman was an original member of The Rolling Stones and was their bass player until his departure from the group in 1993. His last full album with the group was 1989’s Steel Wheels. Since then, he has authored acclaimed books on roots music and autobiographies, recorded five solo albums between 1997 and 2004, toured with his band the Rhythm Kings, and last year contributed to Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stones first studio album of new material since A Bigger Bang in 2005.

Drive May Car is his ninth solo album and third since leaving the Stones. His last solo album was Back to Basics in 2015. At 87, Wyman has made a solo album that reflects his love for roots music and his easygoing, understated approach to making music.

The album has the feel of a long-lost J.J. Cale album with its laid back, rollicking rhythms and tasty guitar feel, which could maybe have been produced by Mark Knopfler. Wyman’s sandpaper whisper of a voice works perfectly on these originals and folksy blues covers. His supporting cast, as on previous solo and Rhythm Kings releases, is stellar and includes the likes of Robbie McIntosh, Andy Fairweather-Lowe, and Guy Fletcher, among others.

The covers are perfect choices, beginning with the opening rendering of Bob Dylan’s “Thunder On the Mountain.” Other choice bluesy folk covers include songs penned by Taj Mahal, John Prine, and Chuck E. Weiss. Wyman collaborated with Terry Taylor on “Rough Cut Diamond” and there are two solo compositions, the title cut and “Bad News.”

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1964 was a year dominated by The Beatles and the British Invasion. The emphasis was very much on pop. Concurrent and sometimes overlapping with Beatlemania and the British Invasion was the British R&B scene, which itself was part of the burgeoning British blues scene. The British Invasion began in Liverpool with The Beatles, followed by other Liverpool groups and groups from London and other parts of the UK such as Manchester, Birmingham, and even some from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The sound become so ubiquitous that it even included musicians from Australia and Americans who became part of the British Invasion like the Walker Brothers, P.J. Proby and others.

This three-CD set miraculously chronicles in exhaustive detail the British R&B boom of 1964. While the scene/genre began in 1964 and would continue, mutate and shapeshift for years to come, 1964 might be considered its brief peak, not so much in quality or commercial success, but by the sheer number of artists.

The scene was centered around many clubs in London, near London or throughout England including the 100 Club, the Ealing Club, Oasis, the King Mojo Club, the Twisted Wheel, the Marquee, the Flamingo, the Railway Hotel, and the Crawdaddy Club. Some of the key players who were not musicians included manager Giorgio Gomelsky, Mike Vernon of Decca and later Blue Horizon Records, and Rick Gunnel of the Gunnel Agency.

It’s important to note that several artists included here were also part of other genres, trends, and scenes such as Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Merseybeats, The Searchers, The Hollies and The Zombies, who were all more associated with the British Invasion. Artists included here more aligned with the British blues scene would include John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, the Graham Bond Organization, Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men, and the Hoochie Coochie Men featuring Rod Stewart.

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Cat Stevens has gone through many musical and personal incarnations. His initial musical life was as a budding pop artist and songwriter during London’s Swinging Sixties. His big breakthrough, though, was when he recorded a series of four defining singer-songwriter albums from 1971 through 1974, led by the commercial and critically acclaimed Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat. Catch Bull at Four didn’t completely conclude this period, but with Foreigner, released in 1973 it was clear Stevens had a more varied musical palette than what he displayed on previous albums.

The fact that this album starts off with the nearly 19-minuite “Foreigner Suite,” which took up all of side one, indicated that this album was a clear breakaway from his previous singer-songwriter outings. The title concept partially came from the fact that Stevens was living as a tax exile in Brazil and not in England.

Recording at Dynamic Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, Stevens clearly absorbed the varied musical rhythms of the island and the beat became more important to his music than ever before. There’s a general island feel in the way various sounds are mixed together, most notable on the title track. Clearly, recording for Island Records at this time (in the UK) rubbed off on his music.

“The Hurt” was as close as the album came to a hit and received the most, mainly FM, airplay. This is music from an artist clearly digging even deeper within himself and also expanding his musical palette and number of collaborators, including primarily Canadian Jean Roussel, such session aces as Phil Upchurch, Herbie Flowers, and Bernard Purdie, along with the Tower of Power horns and singer Patti Austin.

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The Frank Zappa vault series, whether it’s reissues of classic albums or new archival releases, is an embarrassment of riches that thankfully seems to have no end.

Among the recent new products (boy, would Frank hate that word) to come out in various configurations and formats are legendary recordings from the Whiskey a Go-Go from July 23rd, 1968. The concert came after the first three albums from the Mothers: Freak Out! (1966), Absolutely Free (1967), and We’re Only in It for the Money (1968) and Zappa’s first solo album, Lumpy Gravy, a collaboration with the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra, on which Zappa did not perform, but instead conducted the orchestra.

While some of these live recordings have come out in dribs and drabs over the years, having all three sets available for the first time is truly a revelation. The evening was a real happening and some of the rock glitterati in attendance included former members of The Turtles and future members of The Mothers, Mark Volman and Howard Kalan, soon to be known as Flo & Eddie. Others there for the historic evening included John Mayall, during his Laurel Canyon period, and reportedly members of The Rolling Stones.

With the famed Wally Heider mobile recording truck on hand, and intended as a live recording session (how it was billed on the marquee) of the Mothers of Invention, this is more of a multi-media freak out, or what some might even call a freak show. This is classic Mothers of Invention, with all their wooly hair hanging down to their knobby knees.

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Billy J. Kramer was a key artist of the British Invasion. He had many hits including several penned by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Like The Beatles, he was managed by Brian Epstein, recorded at Abbey Road Studios (then called EMI Studios), and was produced by George Martin.

Kramer released his comeback album, I Won the Fight, ten years ago. While it’s taken him 10 years to do a follow-up, it was more than worth the wait. The new release does not feel like an album from a heritage artist making what could be his final musical statement. This sounds like an artist of the moment with many albums yet to come. The release celebrates Kramer’s 60th anniversary in music. To commemorate his beginnings, Kramer ventured back to Abbey Road Studios last summer to record the album.

The album was co-produced by Jeff Perholtz and Laurence Juber. Juber was of course in Wings with Paul McCartney. Another Wings member Steve Holley reteams here with Juber and plays drums on five tracks. Also contributing is Liberty DeVitto, Billy Joel’s original drummer, who wrote “I was Only Sleeping.” Additionally, Mark Hudson, who has worked extensively with Ringo Starr, co-wrote “I Couldn’t Have Done It Without You.” Kramer doesn’t just sing on the album; he also wrote “Be Kind to Emma” and “Peace of Mind.”

While Kramer was obviously influenced by Lennon and McCartney through his recording of some of their songs, this album actually has a more updated, latter-day Ringo Starr and even George Harrison feel in parts, with the Ringo-esque sound on the first two tracks and Harrison’s influence on “Go On Girl.”

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The Fest for Beatles Fans will be held in Chicago from August 9–11, 2024 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. Some of the guests who will appear are Billy J. Kramer, Mickey Dolenz, Randy Bachman, Freda Kelly, Chris O’Dell, and Steve Holley and Laurence Juber of Wings. There will also be other musicians, panelists, historians, disc jockeys, experts, and writers. Bruce Spizer and Aaron Badgley are two authors who will be there who have recently published Beatles-related books. Here is a roundup of recent Beatles-related books, included those from Spizer and Badgley.

The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night & More by Bruce Spizer (498 Productions) Happening concurrently with the 60th anniversary of the release of the film A Hard Day’s Night, and related soundtrack and non-soundtrack albums, Bruce Spizer has come up with yet another indispensable book on The Beatles. Along with Mark Lewisohn, Ken Womack, and arguably a few others, Spizer is one of the most authoritative chroniclers of The Beatles.

This new book is Spizer’s eighth in his recent album series of books. The eight books prior to this series, which launched Spizer, focused on the various record labels the group recorded for during their short time together in the 1960s. This is the fourth book in the album series in which Spizer covers multiple Beatles albums.

The previous books in the series covered Please Please Me, With The Beatles, Introducing The Beatles, and Meet The Beatles; Yellow Submarine, and Magical Mystery Tour; and Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Yesterday and Today, respectively. This book is focused on the British and American versions of A Hard Days Night, The Beatles’ Second Album, and Something New.

The beautiful hardcover book begins with carefully researched writing on the four albums and singles from this period, along with album jacket art, singles sleeve art, and a healthy dose of rare memorabilia of all kinds. There is also coverage of other music that was released and, in some cases, popular at the same time, along with details on then current movies, and further context on the news and cultural makeup of the era.

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The following releases are part of the Start Your Ear Off Right, limited-edition, colored vinyl reissue series from Rhino.

Yes was one of the cornerstone groups from the UK that established Progressive rock as a major commercial musical genre of the 1970s. Although Yes and other Prog bands had their roots in British Psychedelia and/or released their debut albums in the late ’60s, the commercial zenith of the movement was in the ’70s. This self-titled first album from Yes (originally released on Atlantic), released in 1969, very much established the group’s sound and lyrical foundation.

Two members of this lineup would go on to be part of the key studio albums that reflected the group’s ’70s peak—lead singer Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire. The other members, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and drummer Bill Bruford would also be on the group’s next album Time and a Word. On the group’s first major studio hit release, The Yes Album, Steve Howe would replace Peter Banks. Fragile would mark the departure of Tony Kaye, replaced by Rick Wakeman, which would also be the lineup for Close to the Edge. Tales From Topographic Oceans would see the departure of drummer Bill Buford and arrival of drummer Alan White.

Listening to the first album from Yes in retrospect, one can hear many if not most of the elements that would define Yes during its commercial peak. The songs on their first album are less part of a larger conceptual effort and more individual songs. The sound can be a bit more Prog in the almost pre-fusion jazz sense, somewhat like early King Crimson. Banks is a fine guitarist and on first listen, he doesn’t sound that different from Howe’s later legendary work. The same could be said for Tony Kaye’s keyboard, but clearly, the dynamic instrumental prowess of Howe and Wakeman is what elevated the group to incomparable heights of Prog majesty.

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