10 posts tagged “favorite albums”
Around Mid- 1983, I was insanely in love with singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks, and was voraciously devouring anything and everything to do with her. Though I’d always loved her Fleetwood Mac songs and was even a fan of her Bella Donna solo album (especially the rocking Edge Of Seventeen), it wasn’t until her second album The Wild Heart came out that I totally flipped for her and began worshipping her as the rock-goddess she was!
Back then, out video station of choice was Night Tracks on WTBS, and me and my friends tuned in every weekend to check out the latest videos before heading out for the night’s activities. At that time, my favorite videos were Stevie’s "If Anyone Falls" as well as "Stand Back", but I was curious about another Stevie video that Night Tracks routinely played, and that was the dreamy and mystical Gypsy, which credits told me was off of Fleetwood Mac’s latest album Mirage, which had just come out a few months earlier.
Mirage? What was that album? I’d heard of Rumours, of course, as well as the big (at that time) album Tusk, but didn’t know anything about this one, nor did I know anyone who’d picked it up. But I really wanted the Gypsy Track, and when my friend Herb informed me that it also had the fun song “Hold Me” on it, I was convinced!
We went down to Tower Records, and as I waited in line looking over the George Hurell-shot cover, I remember the first thing that shocked me was getting used to Lindsey Buckingham without his trademark afro and goatee! The cover was kind of a wraparound thing, with Lindsey and the girls on the front, and the Fleetwood and Mac group namesakes on the back, looking very much like the wards of the ‘Mac Estate!
We took the album home and immediately dove in. While my friend Herb showed only passing interest in the tracks, I was immediately smitten and would go on to not only repeatedly play that album over and over, but make all my FRIENDS listen to it, too!
One great thing about having three prolific songwriters in the group is a LOT of diversity, and Mirage is another great showcase of the members’ talents. Christine, Lindsey and Stevie each take turns with their compositions, giving the album a decidedly “White Album” feel to it as they build up a musical “quilt” of song genres!
With Lindsey Buckingham, It’s funny, that in the first two ‘Mac albums he and Stevie were in, his songs were carefully crafted pop/rock tunes, but by the time TUSK came out, his songwriting (to ME at least) started to sound like that Dana Carvey songwriting character who makes up songs as he goes along, and songs like “Not That Funny!” and “What Makes you think You’re The One” sounded more like jam sessions with nonsensical lyrics than actual singles. The songs he penned for Mirage still have this loose free-form feel to them (as in songs like "Book of Love", "Diane" and "Can’t Go Back”, but they are fun and catchy as hell! There’s this one goofy song called “Eyes of the World”, and with its refrain of “eyes…eyes…eyes” as its chorus, my friend James once exclaimed “What the heck is this crap?!” before dancing around, pointing at his eyes in tune with the song. AHAHAHA! But the one masterpiece Lindsey DID lay down for this album was the cool, rocking song EMPIRE STATE, about his experiences in the Big Apple (as opposed to Sunny California). MAN, I love to blast this one!
Stevie is the one who’s experimented the most with her songwriting, and though “Gypsy” sounds most like her previous work (almost like a sequel of sorts to “Rhiannon”), her other two songs sound more like the stuff she was writing for her solo albums. “That’s Alright” is a country-tinged kicker that almost seems like a precursor for her later “Enchanted” song, but it’s her third track “Straight Back!” that sounds the most like the “solo” Stevie Nicks songs, a slow rocker driven by some awesome keyboards by Christine. The song fades out too soon; I really wish this song could have been a bit longer for how good it is!
Of the three, Christine McVie is the most reliable here, and she exudes the same romantic pop stylings that gave us songs like “You Make Loving Fun”, “Warm Ways” and “Songbird”. Opening the album with the awesome toe-tapping sunshine-y song “Love In Store”, she runs the gamut through tunes like “Out Of My Mind” and the fun aforementioned song “Hold Me” before closing the album with the beautifully melancholy “Wish You Were Here”, one of her BEST ballads, ever!
High on the album, that Christmas I was THRILLED to find that they’d released a Videodisc concert of their MIRAGE tour, and after I bought it (at the local RCA dealership), it quickly became the most played movie that season! Songs form Mirage like Love In Store”, “Gypsy” and “Eyes Of The World”(!) were all featured here, and the show even had one of the coolest openings ever with “The Chain”, and one of the sweetest closing songs with “Songbird”!
Although I know that albums like Rumours and the eponymous titled Fleetwood Mac albums are probably greater albums overall, I’ve really come to embrace MIRAGE as my own, because while most Fleetwood Mac fans either love the “Bare Trees” era, the Rumours era, or the “Tango in The Night” comeback era, I have never, NEVER met another fan who owns, much less loves MIRAGE as much as me. Which is strange, because it was a bestseller when it came out…where did all those purchasers get to?
Check out some of my favorite tunes from MIRAGE!
There was a time when my favorite group was The Kinks, and I was busy trying to get all the albums that featured my favorite songs by the eclectic British Invasion group. From You Really Got Me, through Lola and All Day and All of the Night, I picked em all up! But there was one particular album that I didn’t know anything about. It was called The Village Green Preservation Society, and was one of the last albums featuring the original 4-man lineup of Ray, Dave, Mick and Pete. What WAS this album? Was it Country? or, by the look of the cover, was it Folk?
Well, I didn’t know, but since the album was one of the few Kinks albums in the NICE PRICE line, (for those who don’t remember, the NICE PRICE albums were these selected cheaper priced albums that sold for $3.99) I didn’t have anything to lose by purchasing the album and checking it out- and MY GOSH, did THAT end up being a BARGAIN!
Like I said, I assumed it was going to be a country or folk album just by the title and cover picture, so I was COMPLETELY TAKEN UNAWARE when I was hit by one of the most witty, sentimental and HILARIOUS concept albums I’d ever heard in my life! Listening to this album was like foraging through an old chest of treasures in a dusty attic- all these little gems singing about the most mundane things in life, tunes that were innovative AND catchy at the same time! We only had to listen to it once before the album became THE soundtrack me and my friends listened to for MONTHS, and to this day, The Village Green Preservation Society still remains one of my most beloved albums in my collection, easily one of the top twenty LPs I own!
An Ode to all things pure and simple in the world, championing such things as antique tables, little shops and virginity! This song about celebrating all the everyday things in life sets the template for the theme of the Village Green Preservation Society LP!
A sentimental song about a childhood friendship. After reminiscing about adventures he’s had as a kid with a friend named Walter, he realizes that if he were to meet Walter now, He’d probably be nothing like the childhood friend he knew, and would probably not even care about the things they did. But that’s okay, because he still has his memories of their childhood days.
Picture Book
A song about the magic of looking through old Photo Albums, this song is more recently known for its brief stint as the theme song for one of those computer photo printers.
A sort of precursor for the album closer “People Take Pictures of each other”.
We’ve always debated whether this song was about a true Paul Bunyan-ish hero or a misunderstood savior, but one thing is sure- Johnny Thunder’s a tough ol’ guy, and he has a little sweetheart named Helena who has all the faith in the world in him.
Last of the Steam-Powered Trains
A sad song sung in the first person of a now passé Steam-Engine lamenting his replacement by the more slick and modern express Trains that progress has presented. But he perks up by saying that by being an antique and placed in a museum, his well-being will be seen to!
I love the way this song’s beat trudges along like a train chugging, slowly picking up speed as the song progresses, to its big end!
And just who might the character “Big Sky” be, if not our Father who Art In Heaven?
A song about the sometimes callous indifference God has regarding the trials and tribulations we petty humans go through, while reminding us that one day, all our suffering will be rewarded. “One day we’ll be free, til that day can be, don’t let it get you down!”
Ah, a song drenched with shades of Maurice Chevalier! This song completely encapsulates a dreamy scene sitting in a little café sipping tea as gondolas go by in the orange sunset, soaking in the Joi de vivre…
A sweet way to end Side One!
Animal Farm
Side Two’s opening track about leaving the headaches and bustle of the big, noisy city and moving to the country, where a man can rest easy and clear his head, free of traffic and superficial people…
Village Green
A sort of sequel to Animal Farm, this one’s about a fine, upstanding young man who has made a name for himself in the big city, but has fond memories about his days growing up in the simple country.
And what would an album about the sweet and innocent things in life be without a NURSERY RHYME? A song that conjures up the images of “The Owl and The Pussycat”, the highlight of the melody is Ray’s own distorted singing as the voice of the Phenomenal Cat merrily humming away!
Starstruck
A fun ditty about a young girl who gets obsessed by the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood scene, and her subsequent transformation into a wanna-be socialite, this tune is made fun by it’s showtime revue refrain: Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba!!
All of My Friends Were There
A trauma all of us go through- drinking too much and making a fool of yourself in front of everyone!
Once you’ve sung a nursery rhyme, what could be more appropriate than to follow it up with a Fairy Tale? And a pretty spooky one, at that! The story of a wicked old Witch that flies the skies at night, looking for kids who haven’t gone to sleep like good little children…
Effectively sinister guitar riffs for this one, too!
Ah, haven’t we all known girls like the songs titular heroine? Smart, sexy, and oh-so-highly desirable, Monica knows she’s too good for just about ANYONE, and enjoys shooting hopeful young suitors down in flames! A man obsessed with a gal just aglow with confidence and charisma!
A HILARIOUS, fun way to end the album! The song sings about the wonder of Photo taking and photo sharing, and as the nostalgic host shows more and more pictures to his guest, the bored captive audience begs, “Don’t show me no more, please”! Something that ANYONE who’s been forced to watch somebody else’s family slideshows can relate to!
One of my all-time favorite female vocalists is the incredible Petula Clark, probably THE female vocalist of the “Swinging Sixties” sound with hits like “Downtown” "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", and “Don’t Sleep in the subway”, among others!
Growing up, my favorite song from Ms. Clark, or “Pet” as they called her occasionally, was the super-positive, horn blaring single A SIGN OF THE TIMES. I always turned this one up whenever it came on the radio, Petula’s voice always seemed so sincere and happy as she sang the lines “You’ve changed a lot somehow from the one I used to know, ‘cause when you hold me now, it feels like you never wanna let me go!”.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t until I fell in love with ANOTHER one of her singles that I finally decided I’d better pick up an album from her:
One day we were all riding down to drop someone off at the Denver Airport, and Pet’s song MY LOVE came on the radio. With its simplistic lyrics, it was one of those songs that everybody knew the words to, and everyone in the car started singing at the tops of their lungs,
“MY LOVE IS WARMER THAN THE WARMEST SUNSHINE SOFTER THAN A SIGH MY LOVE IS DEEPER THAN THE DEEPEST OCEAN WIDER THAN THE SKY MY LOVE IS BRIGHTER THAN THE BRIGHTEST STAR THAT SHINES EVERY NIGHT ABOVE, AND THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD THAN CAN EVER CHANGE MY LOVEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”
After the song ended, we all sat around grinning like idiots, that song made us so happy! I said, “Ah, I really must pick up this song the next time I’m a record store!”
Well, when I finally got down to the record store, I was PLEASANTLY surprised to find that the album “My Love” ALSO featured my old favorite, “A Sign Of The Times”!! I couldn’t believe it! How did I ever miss picking this LP up originally?! For a very modest $6.99 I was able to purchase that album and take it home!
Well, for weeks and weeks, that album was my main disc to play-just about every track was just pure pop perfection. Arranged and Conducted by Tony Hatch, the sound of Pet’s recordings really had that Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” aura about it, the tunes just blared out with droning horns, banging drums and riffin’ guitars!
Nowadays, young people cannot imagine having to change sides to hear a complete album, but that’s how it was, and sometimes it would happen that you’d get attached to one side more than the other…that’s what happened to me with the My Love album! For some reason, even though Side A started with “My Love”, all of my favorite songs from the album were on Side B, so it may seem like I have a LOT more to say about the tracks on the second side!!
After “My Love” starts Side One, next we had “Hold Onto What You’ve Got” and “We Can Work It Out”, and although only the latter was penned by Mssrs. Lennon and McCartney, both are really Beatlesy in flavor, at least as far as THESE ears are concerned!
“Time for Love” is the song I called the “Downtown” of this album, It really sounds like a song recorded during THAT session with its bright keyboards chirping away!
An emotional Pet on “Just Say Goodbye”, my fave line’s when she sings “It’s sad that you must go, you loved me once, I know, this much I can’t deny”…
“Life and Soul of the Party”-I don’t know if it’s the fact that the song’s about being at a PARTY, but I’ve always thought of this as Pet singing a LESLEY GORE song, really “Judy’s Turn to Cry” in feeling!
And THAT ends Side One…
Side Two starts off with a bang! First off, “A Sign of The Times”, followed by a GREAT rendition of the standard “The Thirty-First of June”, a song that Petula made her own, as she did on so many other tunes!
"Where Did We Go Wrong"-I think this is Pet singing at her heart-wrenching best, with its “darling” hook, and especially when the song swells up and she sings the lines “Even so, deep inside the fire of love still burns, so please return and love me now!” Powerful!
“I Can’t Remember Ever Loving You” has that tinkly piano that I always thought sounded like “Precious and Few” by Climax, a song that was almost the exact OPPOSITE of Pet’s sad song that ‘s more akin to Barry Manilow’s “Trying To Get That Feeling Again”!
“Dance with Me” features a VERY “Soundtrack-y” orchestration behind her vocals, even slightly reminiscent of the intro to “The Age Of Aquarius” and even a bit of “My Hawaii” by the Young Rascals!
And closing the album with one of my very, very favorite Petula Clark tracks, Pet’s take on the GUYS AND DOLLS standard “If I Were a Bell”…folks, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, it just doesn’t get better than this! The swinging horns, banging drums, Pet’s solid vocals, WOW, this had all the showy aura of Las Vegas in the 60’s, when everything was “Cool, Baby!”
Why, Pet even throw in a few “Ring-a-Dings” just in case you didn’t catch that one!
Of course, this was only the beginning of a long and lasting love of all things Petula Clark and I was probably the happiest guy at Tower Records when, years later, they FINALLY got around to re-releasing all of Pet’s albums on CD! What they’d done was , each CD combined TWO of Pet’s albums, in the case of MY LOVE, it was on the same CD with I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE. Funny thing, THAT album began with Pet’s take on “Strangers in the Night”, and since it followed the MY LOVE album, “If I Were A Bell” went right into “Strangers in the Night”, a PEREFCT coupling, both with that aforementioned “Vegassy” feel and Sinatra connection! Ahahahaha
One day I was walking up to the 7-Eleven, and I saw a flyer posted up near the Music store and Guitar lesson building stating: Performing Live at (so-and-so pavilion), Christian Music sensation AMY GRANT! I looked at the picture of this girl. I hadn’t heard of her before, but looking at the picture of Amy dressed in a leopard print flecked jacket, she looked intriguing, to say the least (and boy, was she pretty!)
Then I remembered that Randy had said one of his music colleagues had let him borrow some contemporary Christian cassettes before, and he thought they were pretty good! I knew he’d be up to exploring a new kind of music!
The next day at school, I met up with Randy and excitedly told him,“Hey, there’s this cute Contemporary Christian singer named Amy Grant who’s coming to perform at some event, you wanna go check it out? I think it’d be interesting to go to a concert like that!” Randy looked at me for a few seconds before slowly replying, “Naw.”
I was a bit surprised by this answer. He usually was an inquisitive kind of guy, especially where exploring new music comes in. “You sure?”, I said. “You said you worked with some students who played you some Christian music in your Musician Workshop, remember? You said you liked it, and besides, I think a concert like this’ll be fun!”
Randy pondered for a moment before dismissively saying “Nah, I’ll pass…You can go.”
I was bummed out! I really wanted to check out this girl, but not by myself! This was something that I was sure he would find interesting, but I guess Christian music just wasn’t as “cool” as seeing a Jazz combo performing at a dive near the airport. “Oh well, sorry, Amy!” was all I could think. I honestly didn’t think I’d hear anything more about her again.
Fast forward about three years later, and I’m long out of High school ,and am working at a Photofinishing Lab in charge of the Machine-prints department. The “E6” room was where all the negatives and slides were processed, and so I spent most of my time in there loading film and mounting slides. The supervisor of the “E6” room was a guy named Joe who was also a pastor of a small church on the weekends, and since he was running the processing room, the radio was tuned to what HE wanted to listen to, in this case, KAIM, Hawaii’s only (at the time) Christian broadcasting channel. The three or four of us who had to do most of our work in that room got to know a lot of the contemporary christian scene after a while!
The very first week I started working in the E6 room, I heard this beautiful song on the radio called “Mountain Top”. When the song was over, the DJ informed me that the singer was none other than Amy Grant!
“Hey!” I said to myself, “That’s the girl that came in concert when I was in high school!” She sounded just like what I imagined her to sound like, thoughtful and breezy, just her gentle voice and her acoustic guitar. KAIM played that song with so much regularity, that I thought it must be her new single, but my supervisor told me it was an older song of hers.
In any case, I fell in love with Mountain Top, and one weekend, I made my way to Rhema Bookstore on Kapiolani Boulevard, where they had a really great selection of Christian CDs and tapes, to see if they had the album with that song on it. I was in luck, for not only did they have the release, they had it on CD! (Back then, most of the Christian music offered was only on cassette!) I found out that not only was Mountain Top an “older” song of hers, it was on her very FIRST self-titled album released way back in 1977! I immediately bought it!
Upon listening to AMY GRANT for the first time, I was immediately taken by the opening song “Beautiful Music”. It was so sweet and simple, and I just loved the sincerity in her voice. Then on came Mountain Top, and before I knew it, I had come to the last song on the album, a happy little ditty called “He Gave me A New Song”, which ended leaving the listener in a really good mood!
Now, I think I have to point out that I’m not anything NEAR a devout Christian- I went to church when I was a kid, but that was IT. The reason I liked the Amy Grant‘s music was simply because I loved them as great songs, religious or not! Oh, and of course, I thought she was cute as heck!
As I got to know Amy’s voice, I started to realize just how important she was in the current Christian music scene- there were so many great songs of hers that were in regular rotation on KAIM, songs like “Angels”, ”Everywhere I Go” and the great “Faithless Heart”, that I knew I had to explore more of Amy’s catalog!
On my next trip to Rhema, browsing through the Amy Grant stuff they had, I came across a CD that took me aback, for there on the cover was a picture of Amy in the same leopard print flecked jacket that I’d seen years before on the concert flyer! In fact, It was from the same B&W photo shoot! I picked it up, and there on the back was the exact picture that I’d seen! I held up the album, thinking “Say!! This must have been the CD she was touring for when she came to Hawaii!” The album was called Unguarded, and sure enough, when I looked at the date of the Album, it was 1985, the same year I was in school! That was all I needed to know, and I bought the CD without a second thought!
How exciting to listen to the album that had come out the same time that I was introduced to her for the first time!
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I put in Unguarded for the first time, maybe since it was an older album I was expecting more acoustic guitar or something, but nothing could prepare me for the synthesizer driven rocking opening track called “Love Of Another Kind”! Poppy and catchy, this was a far cry from the acoustic “Mountain Top”, but I loved it immediately!
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the next song “Find A Way” had gotten moderate airtime on “regular” Top 40 radio channels, and there was even a really cool video of Amy singing this song dressed in that very same leopard-print jacket sported on the album cover!
Then the song I had become quite familiar with from KAIM airplay, “Everywhere I Go”, followed by the country-pop song ”I Love You” and the very modern new-wavey songs “Stepping In Your Shoes” and “Fight”, which featured some great bass playing!
Winding down the home stretch, we now come upon the rockin’ song “Wise Up” co written by Michael W. Smith , he of “Friends” fame, and speaking of that song, the next song is a tune very similar in vein…
The awesome song “Sharayah”, the song that I consider to be the “album closer” song of Unguarded, (as The Prodigal which is the actual closer seems more like an epilogue, at least for me!)
The song is about someone’s fervent hope that their friend will turn to Jesus because they want to spend eternity with them, kind of like Michael W. Smith’s "Friends" song.
One day I was browsing through a record store and noticed that the cover on the LP had a different pose of Amy than the CD I had at home! I thought at the time maybe the CD and the Album had different images, and quickly picked up the album, but I was later to find out that there were in actuality FOUR different covers, and through the wonder of ebay, over time I was able to collect them all!
Amy also released a wonderful video companion to the Unguarded release, offering up the aforementioned video for the song “Find A Way”, as well as videos for the songs “Angels”, “Wise Up”, and “Don’t Run Away” !
As time has gone on, I’ve managed to get every major release from Amy’s back-catalog on CD, and continue to support her to this day! From My Father's Eyes, through Age To Age and Lead Me On, Amy's constantly evolving over the years, but it’s always been a welcome growth, and I've loved every facet of her career. In fact, one of her more recent albums “Behind The Eyes” is one of my all time favorite albums from her, just when I thought she couldn't get any better!
And for those who like a little visual with their music, the terrific PV for "Find A Way"...
Another listen to their previous albums - beginning with the last two, the superb A Kind Of Hush and the sublime Horizon, then continuing all the way back to their debut LP, Ticket To Ride - will reinforce the conclusion that Karen and Richard's records have of course always had the qualities listed above, combined with impeccable taste and a quality of production that made their work a standard against which to measure that of their contemporaries. Taken as a whole, the Carpenters' recorded output makes up an oeuvre in which all pieces fit, in which daring adventurousness and taste have equal place.
Be that as it may ...
This is STILL the most daring, innovative, surprising, serendipitous and satisfying Carpenters album yet."
The first Carpenters album I ever bought with my own money was The Singles 1969-1973. I remember making my friends listen to it every day after school! But it wasn’t until a bit later that my interest in them turned into a full-blown obsession!
It was only after years of collecting all things Carpenters that I realized two things : One: Passage was one of my favorite albums by The Carpenters, and Two: It didn’t really seem to be anyone ELSE’S favorite!
Strictly speaking, my two favorite albums by The Carpenters are “a Song For You”, and “Passage”… While “Song” is rightly hailed as the great album it is (even getting the Mobile Fidelity “Gold Disc” treatment), Passage seems to remain largely unknown to the general public.
In fact, I remember one day talking to a fellow employee at Tower Records about Passage, and when he didn’t know what album I was talking about, we went to look for it, only to find out that PASSAGE had been discontinued! ☹
At some point the CD was re-released and remastered along with most of their other albums, but even THAT version is currently unavailable, and that is a real shame -
To me, PASSAGE is the dividing album that marked the end of the 70’s “Pop Icon” Carpenters and the beginning of the “Adult Contemporary” Carpenters that appeared next on the “Made In America” LP. There is no other album like PASSAGE in their catalog, and it remains one of my favorite albums to this day!
1. B'wana She No Home
From the opening tune, you knew you were in for “something completely different” ! This rocking South African flavored song was unlike ANYTHING the Carpenters had done before…low, growly voices from Karen and a jazzy sax & flute accompaniment by Tom Scott!
Lots of Carpenters fans have expressed a dislike of this song, but I liked it tremendously from the first time I heard it, and have only grown to love it more!
2. All You Get From Love Is A Love Song
When I was growing up, my mother was a HUGE fan of the Carpenters and most of the early songs I learned listening to her singles, but this was the first single I liked by them on my own. Whenever the song played on our tinny old AM car radio, I remember always quietly sitting there listening intently to the tune, the chorus was so catchy!
“It’s such a dirty old shame when all you get from love is a love song…”
3. I Just Fall In Love Again
One of only two songs on this album that sound like ‘traditional” Carpenters fare!
Also done by Anne “Snowbird” Murray in ‘79.
4. On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada / Don't Cry For Me Argentina
When I first heard this song, I expected to be bored out of my skull listening to it - but surprisingly, I really took to it, and would always find myself singing along to the song.
I didn’t realize how much I liked the Carpenters version of this song until Madonna went through her “Evita” phase and I had to listen to HER version all the time in the record store! Only then did I realize how honest and pure Karen’s take had been!
5. Sweet, Sweet Smile
Carpenters enter the Country charts with this catchy Juice ”Queen Of Hearts” Newton song! Another song I love to blast and sing along to!
6. Two Sides
The only other song on “Passage” that sounds like “Traditional” Carpenters fare…in fact, this song sounds like it would fit right in with the playlist of the HORIZON album.
7. Man Smart, Woman Smarter
Zany Harry Belafonte song made even zanier by Richard’s arrangement.
I always get the vision of a band of monkeys and birds playing the music in this song.
Beginning with them playing their jungle whistles and flutes, and ending with the animals forming a noisy parade as the song fades out segueing into…
8. Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
(The Recognized Anthem Of World-Contact Day)
While this is surely the wackiest song The Carpenters ever recorded, at the same time, I feel this is one of the best produced and arranged tracks they’ve ever put to disc!
Originally written and recorded by the group KLAATU only a few months earlier, Richard took the song and gave it the Carpenters treatment, and what resulted was what I consider their finest album-closer of them all!
Calling Occupants.
Listening to it now, it is hard to believe this song ever made it to the radio! And yet, it DID, even making Top 40 on the US charts! Even as a kid, the song was funny, and yet, it never failed to captivate me whenever it was on.
I know that it is hard to believe NOW, but I remember that back in the 70’s (what with 2001, Star Trek and Star Wars) there really was this feeling like Earth was on the verge of making contact with extraterrestrial beings, and I’ve always loved that the song proclaimed itself “The Recognized Anthem Of World-Contact Day”!
My obsession with the song.
When I finally got my hands on a copy of PASSAGE, I hadn’t heard “Occupants” in years, but listening to it again, I was blown away by how WELL the song was done. This was no jokey-silly song, SERIOUS production went into crafting this tune, and the more I listened to it, the more I picked things out that really made the song special to me…. I cannot put enough emphasis on how WELL this song has been arranged! EVERY single verse has some kind of embellishment that adds to the song’s overall impact…at least to MY obsessive perception!
The production is so melodramatic and overblown, I think people might have perceived it as a bit contemptuous if it wasn’t for the fact that they introduced the song with Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso as a wackily befuddled Radio DJ conferring with the “listeners” before launching into the majesty that IS “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft”!
[The song starts out with Karen’s lone voice gently singing with Richard’s keyboards softly backing her up. She sounds like she is in the middle of a field or on the top of a mountain (and in fact, the original KLAATU version has the sound of someone walking through grass before the song starts) staring into the sky, letting us in on a little secret:]
In your mind, you have capacities, you know,
To telepath messages through the vast unknown.
Please close your eyes and concentrate with every thought you think…
Upon the recitation we’re about to SING….
[at this point , the piano chord strikes down, to give attention to the message:]
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft…
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary most extraordinary craft!
[The effect here is great…you can feel Karen’s voice projecting into the huge empty vastness of the sky…then the song kicks in!]
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary most extraordinary Craft
[Then Karen in a dreamy wistful voice sings out:]
You’ve been observing our earth,
And we’d like to make a contact with you…
[then they say the simplest message they can give:]
“We Are Your Friends.”
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary ultra-emmisaries!
[here with distorted voice, Richard acts out an alien voice responding back:]
“We’ve been observing your earth…and one night, we’ll make a contact with you.”
“We are your Friends”
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary quite extraordinary craft!
[Then the bridge, and the music turns fanciful as Karen and Richard start playfully adding more and more requests to the message!]
And please come in peace, we beseech you!
Only a landing will teach them
Our earth may never survive - so do come, we beg you!
Please, interstellar policeman!
Won’t you give us a sign (give us a sign) that we’ve reached you?
Oh!
{then the music has this inquisitive sound to it, as if the message is going out into the vast space, around planets and beyond, before the piano pounds back in and leads us to a huge crescendo, until the music cuts back…and suddenly, we’re back on that mountain top, alone with Karen again.]
With your mind, you have ability to form
and transmit thought energy far beyond the norm
[here, a fanfare type of music starts playing in the background, as she reiterates:]
You close your eyes, you concentrate, together, that’s the way!
To send the message:
“WE DECLARE WORLD-CONTACT DAY”
[then the music comes in full, with Tony Peluso’s awesome guitar zooming in to strengthen the passage…]
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary most-extraordinary craft!
[I love this part…first Richard’s lone voice singing:]
Aa-a-ah-ah…
[then Karen comes in:]
AA A AH AH!
[This seems to be demonstrating how one lone voice can become powerful and strong when we all take the time to concentrate the message together!]
Ahhhh Ah Ah Ahhhhhh….
Calling Occupants
Calling Occupants
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary anti-adversary craft!
[Then the patriotic music swells up, as if to say we ALL stand together to represent Planet Earth!]
[Then they fade out with the symphony blaring and the choir singing out,
as Karen leaves us again with the single most important message we can send:]
“We are Your Friends”
* * * * * * * * *
People tend to write off THE BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC double album as nothing more than a bunch of recordings taken from a live Radio Show. Well…yeah, that’s what they ARE, but it’s more than that, too!
When the Beatles were clubbing and touring in their early days, most of their set consisted of covers of their favorite songs at the time, songs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, and others.
By the time the Beatles were releasing albums, their OWN compositions were filling the tracks, but they always put at least a couple of songs from their club sets onto their albums, songs like SLOW DOWN, BAD BOY, ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN, BOYS, A TASTE OF HONEY, BABY, IT’S YOU, LONG TALL SALLY, and YOU REALLY GOT A HOLD ON ME.
On BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC, you get to hear a whole plethora of songs they covered that never made it onto ANY of their albums. The thing about it is, these songs are performed REALLY TIGHT, and you can hear the joy in their voices as they sing- they really love these songs!
There are even a couple of songs (Keep your Hands Off My Baby, I Forgot To Remember To Forget) that actually sound pre-recorded, the performance is so tight. The cool thing about these covers is that they aren’t merely re-done, rather, they are taken and given a “Beatley” twist to them.
Songs like Elvis Presley’s “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry over You” has been given a Beatles “Wooooh!”, The Coasters’ “Young Blood” has John saying “What’s Your Name?” in his hilarious "simpleton" slur, and Chuck Berry’s “I Got to Find My Baby” has a real sweet Beatles riff towards the end of the song!
Even songs that DID make their way to Beatles Albums sound different and interesting: At this stage in the game, JOHN was still singing lead on “Honey Don’t” (which later went to Ringo on Beatles For Sale), and it is a real foot-stomper!
I always tell my friends that you could take the unreleased songs from the double album, and make ONE fine Beatles single album! By my estimation, the tracks to consider:
I Got A Woman (cool George guitar picking)
Too Much Monkey Business (George rocks in the middle!)
Keep Your Hands Off My Baby (pre-recorded? Background vocals sweet!)
I’ll Be On My Way (AWESOME Lennon/McCartney song never put on album!)
Young Blood (Awesome, Fun song with George lead)
A Shot Of Rhythm and Blues
Some Other Guy (Killer song, featured on the ANTHOLOGY special)
That’s All Right (Elvis song featuring a driving Ringo beat!)
Carol (nice George guitar talk-back to John’s vocals)
Soldier of Love (a bit of “Baby It’s You” here)
Clarabella (Paul doing his “Little Richard” style vocals here)
Nothin’ Shakin
Crying, Waiting, Hoping (cool version of Buddy Holly song)
To Know Her is to Love Her (early “This Boy” influence?)
Memphis, Tennessee (John doing Johnny Rivers!)
Lonesome Tears in my Eyes
Sweet Little Sixteen (I can’t believe this never made it to album!)
Hippy Hippy Shake I Forgot to Remember to Forget (awesome George vocal)
Ooh My Soul
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry Over You (Elvis song turned Skiffle beat!)
I Got To Find My Baby (rockin’!)
Honey Don’t (John Vocal-kicks ass!)
Don’t Ever Change The Honeymoon Song (a real Paul-type song, nice!)
Yes, the quality here isn’t great, and in spots can be pretty thin (this is probably why they kept this from the public so long!), but these were radio broadcasts, and to hear new/unheard music by The Beatles is such a rare thing! Here are four selected tunes to check your ears out on:
As a HUGE fan of THE WHO, I can tell you there are very few groups that managed to get the same feeling and sound of The Who during the Quick One/Sell Out period…
But ELMER GANTRY’S VELVET OPERA sure does a great job!
The first time I heard the opening track “Mother Writes”, I was already awestruck at how much John Ford’s Bass Guitar playing sounded like John Entwistle of The Who. And everyone knows how much of a feat that is in itself!
Listening to this makes me wonder if John Ford was using "Rotosound Strings" like Entwistle, too!
Then the next song “Mary Jane” was equally as catchy, with more brilliant bass playing! Then onto “I Was Cool”, a song that had a real “After The Fox” feel to it…a real zany song. Then “Air”, “Lookin’ For an Easy Life”..track after track…they were all so good! The song “Flames” features some snappin’ drums and killer guitar, and “Long Nights of Summer” is a winsome song, complete with a David Bowie-ish flair to it! “Now She’s Gone” is a heavy song with a very “Sparks”-ish backing track ! What a driving Bass line! And if there was any doubt about the Who influence here, “Dream Starts” even features a VERY John Entwistle flavored FRENCH HORN solo a la “Pictures Of Lily”!
The arrangement and structure of these songs are what really hooked me, though…they are so darn catchy!!
The CD re-release features some very nice extra songs, faves include the really sweet “Dreamy”, The “Whipping Post” flavored “Salisbury Plains” and the rockers “Volcano” and “A Quick B” (a spoof of the WHO title a Quick One?), which features some San Francisco Jorma Kaukonen style guitar!!
An AWESOME under-appreciated and unknown album!
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
David “Elmer”Gantry: Vocals
Colin Forster; Guitar
John Ford; Bass
Richard "Hud" Hudson : Drums
The first Moody Blues album I ever owned was the amazing Long Distance Voyager, featuring the rocker “The Voice”. A friend of mine saw this interest I had with the group, and turned me onto the Moody Blues double album anthology “This Is The Moody Blues”. This album covered the Moody Blues’ first seven albums, from "Days of Future Passed" to "Seventh Sojourn". At the time I dug it for the songs you’d expect the casual Moodies fan to like: “Nights In White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon”, and “The Question” among others.
But once I started listening to the entire anthology as a whole, I began to realize that EVERY song on the album was great. Great enough that I was curious as to what the individual albums themselves might hold! So I took the leap into the “classic” Moody Blues catalog, and I’ve been a MAJOR fan ever since!
I love everything the group’s done, from “Days Of Future Passed” through “Octave” to “Strange Times”, but my hands down favorite album of all is their incredible “To Our Children’s Children’s Children”.
This was the Moody Blues’ fourth album proper, and although ALL Moodies Albums have some kind of theme, this seems to be the most cohesive as a concept album. This album was released in1969, right as mankind had just set foot on the moon, and this album reflects the wonder and excitement of the amazing “leap for mankind”.
The album opens with the thundering sound of a rocket taking off, leading us into the song “Higher and Higher”, about the amazing opportunities technology can take us. "Man with his flaming pyre has conquered the wayward breezes!"
Then off into “Eyes of A Child”, reflecting how small man is when thrust into the vastness of outer space. Then some fun moon dancing on the song “Floating” before the ultimate light-speed instrumental “Beyond”… Whenever I hear this song, I always get the rush of flying through space! This was terrific to hear for the first time in its entirety because on "This Is The Moody Blues", it was played only as a backing track to the poem "Om".
For some reason, probably my favorite song here is Mike Pinder's “Sun is Still Shining”, a sitar-driven groover singing about enjoying life in outer space rather than being stuck bored at home on Earth. A cool song!
The second half of the album sees the Moody Blues getting quite philosophical with songs like “Gypsy”, ”Eternity Road” “Candle of Life” and the song Justin Hayward labeled the worthy successor to Nights In White Satin, “Watching and Waiting”.
I remember when I first heard “Gypsy”, I thought it was about real gypsies moving from town to town, always looking for a place to call home. Then one day I realized it was about how in the future we will be constantly travelling to find new planets to colonize.
And with “Eternity Road”, I’d always imagined some Biblical road that led to the Pearly Gates, but upon closer listening, I realized they were singing about how space exploration is limitless in the infinite universe.
Then there’s the epic “Watching and Waiting”. MAN, this is an awesome song. There was this great book writer George Gaylord Simpson penned called “The Dechronization of Sam MacGruder”.
This novel was about a scientist who time-slipped back to the prehistoric age, and spent the rest of his life alone, knowing it would be millions of years before the creatures populating Earth would evolve into mankind…this song really seems to fit the theme of this story…It’s like Adam being born into a perfect planet, waiting for someone to share and appreciate life with him. An incredible closer to the album.
Here are a few cuts off of this fantastic album to lend an ear to.
Justin Hayward: Vocals /Guitar
John Lodge: Vocals / Bass
Ray Thomas: Vocals / Flute,Wind Instruments
Mike Pinder: Vocals / Keyboards
Graeme Edge: Drums and Percussion
The Moody Blues semi-miming the song "Gypsy" to a French audience.
Working at Tower Records in Hawaii, one question that you’d get asked at LEAST twice a year by customers: “HOW COME NONE OF THESE YOUNG RASCALS GREATEST HITS COLLECTIONS HAVE “MY HAWAII”?!” And I would pore over every collection, equally mystified at the song’s absence on any of the CDs.
Because you see, unlike every other state in America, “My Hawaii” was a HUGE hit here, for obvious reasons. It has been in the most requested charts ever since 1968, and you still hear it at LEAST once a day on the Oldies channel here. In fact, it is SO famous in Hawaii, I actually at one time thought it was a local band using the SAME NAME as the “real” Rascals, because I thought there was no way the group singing this beautiful lush hawaiian song could be the same group that sang “ Good Lovin’”!
But it in fact WAS the same group. I was shocked to find that “My Hawaii” didn’t register anything on the mainland charts. I was shocked to later find it hadn’t even been released as a SINGLE! It was only on an album called “Once Upon a Dream”, and that album was OUT OF PRINT and NOT AVAILABLE ON CD. The only way you could own “My Hawaii” was if you had the original vinyl, and that’s how I discovered this wonderful album. Originally acquired for “ My Hawaii”, I was blown away by how awesome EVERY song was on this album, It quickly became a favorite of mine to listen to as I sketched or took walks, it was so relaxing to listen to.
The Rascals’ fourth album proper, this one didn’t get as much airplay or respect when it came out., but truth be told, how could any album live up to the success of their previous album “Groovin’”? So this one slipped by…the only single issued from this was “It’s Wonderful”, a great song that isn’t widely known either, though it made top 40.
It’s too bad, because you can trust me, this album is GREAT. I hate to use the term “psychedelic” or “concept” to describe this, as it ‘s so overused these days (though both descriptions would fit well here), but I’ll say that this is the Rascals fitting in very well with their contemporaries in 1968- it’s got all the trappings all albums had- the phased vocals on “It’s Wonderful” Fuzz Guitar on “Please Love Me” and the obligatory sitar in “Sattva". There are also a few “blue-eyed Soul” numbers like Singing the Blues too Long” and “My World” here.
And Yes, there are the songs that really have an “island” feel to them, whether it be the aforementioned “My Hawaii”, “Rainy Day”(man this song reminds me of Kahaluu!) or the laid back beat of “Easy Rollin’”… you can see why so many people thought The Rascals were a local band.
The saddest thing about this album not getting the props it deserves is the fact that until it is recognized as the great piece that it is, nobody’s going to invest the time and money to properly remaster this treasure like it should. It’s only been released (as a regular edition CD) once, and that one is long out of print, my friend. Somebody on Amazon is selling a copy of it for $219.00 or something. That’s CRAZY!As all tracks were released on a RHINO compilation awhile ago,(also out of print)I wondered if any of those tracks were available for download on Itunes…I was pleasantly surprised to see the entire album available! So I got off my duff and DL’ed the tracks right away, however, when I wanted to share a few you y'all,I found out they were in M4 copyright protected, so I had to use these tracks ripped from the vinyl album! See? Vinyl is still useful!
Most people are familiar with The Electric Prunes as the one-hit-wonder group who did the song "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night”. And while that song rocks, (as does the entire album it is from), my favorite album from the Prunes is their second album, UNDERGROUND.
Unlike the first album, this one featured a more focused group that was branching off into psychedelia and concept songs. Like the first album, the songs balanced between rocking, bluesy and just plain silly songs, but here the group started really experimenting with effects and studio trickery, and you end up with a far out album that is as great as any of the other concept albums around ’68.
Highlights for me are “The Great Banana Hoax” (which has nothing to do with bananas or hoaxes, but features a groovy rumbling drum beat!), “Captain Glory” , “Hideaway”, and the mystifying dreamy rocker “Antique Doll” .
Even the silly songs here are catchy enough...(though not enough that I felt like uploading 'em here!) and the zany song "Dr. Do-Good" was even released as a SINGLE?! Sounds a bit like "They're Coming to take me away!"
Heck, I even like their take on Nashville in the wacky country tune "It's Not Fair"!
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