Cristina Martinez: Genius On Her Sleeve

Every generation has them, those bands and singers that never quite get the recognition and appreciation they deserve. The answer is never really clear but Rock N Roll is littered with buried geniuses. Some get buried by producers (Sam Phillips killing Billy Lee Riley's Red Hot) and even more by labels (think Maria Mckee's astonishing Life Is Sweet album). Some get re-discovered and embraced by later generations while most just slip into obscurity. I hope that Cristina Martinez doesn't eventually fall into this latter category.
Cristina Martinez's Boss Hog rose out of the ashes of the legendary Pussy Galore, which she had been kicked out of in 1987. The early work of Cristina and her husband Jon Spencer, under the moniker Boss Hog, show artists in transition. The early eps like Drinkin Lechin and Lyin and first album Cold Hands show a band not yet fully formed. The noise aesthetic of Pussy Galore hadn't faded and the bands lineup kept changing with only Martinez and Spencer remaining constant. The early work has great moments but it's not until 1993's Girl Positive Ep that Martinez comes into her own and begins to create some truly remarkable music.
The cover to Girl Positive is one of the most striking of the post punk era. After appearing nude on the early Boss Hog records, here Cristina's face is all that is shown. Only Deborah Harry at her peak with Blondie was more perhaps a more beautiful rock star than Cristina Martinez. Had Cristina been interested she could have based her career just on her looks, but Girl Positive showed that she had a lot more than just a beautiful face to offer.
Girl Positive opens with Ruby, one of the great lost tracks of the nineties with it's sly horn arrangement collapsing into ghetto guitar rock at the snap of Cristina's finger. This sounds like a true jazz rock fusion and Cristina is suddenly singing like she is in some 1940's cabaret instead of a punk rock noise band. It's a stunning call to arms track that signals an entire declaration of independence from everything Cristina Martinez might have been thought of before.
It's on this EP that we can hear that Cristina has more Elvis Presley in her collection than Black Flag and more Stax than Dischord. It's also the moment when Boss Hog stops being a Jon Spencer side project, with Bassist Jens Jurgensen and the amazing Hollis Queens on drums this is suddenly a a major band to contend with.
I love Jon Spencer's description of Cristina's love of Elvis Presley, "in my early 20's my wife introduced me to him. She grew up listening to Elvis and I remember her buying the compilations that came out to mark his passing". The reason I mention Cristina's love for Elvis is because the couple of times I was fortunate enough to see her live and meet her in the 90s she reminded me of Elvis. On stage she was a volcanic presence, constantly moving and obviously loving what she was doing and working as hard as possible to make sure everyone else would to. Like Elvis she was also an incredibly warm and charming person. Signing a particularly brooding picture she smiled and said, "I'm not typically so gloomy."
Cristina described Elvis' Love Me Tender as, "unpolished, dripping with sex appeal, making himself completely vulnerable". This description could be used for the remainder of Cristina's career. She would make two astonishing albums, Self Titled and Whiteout, that would showcase her love for punk, cinema, funk, camp and always deep, deep soul. The singles taken from those records like I Dig You, Whiteout and Get It While You Wait all sounded like smashes and featured b-sides that were the equal of the albums. Soundtrack work included a blazing cover of The Kinks I'm Not Lie Everybody Else, which in Cristina's hands seemed like an autobiography. She was at her absolute peak, artistically and physically, and the records just didn't sell.
Each release would be accompanied by videos, articles, photos but nothing seemed to work. They weren't poor sellers but the break that a lot of us were waiting for, for her, never happened.
Between Girl Positive and Whiteout Cristina Martinez became a mother, which is why so little material exists compared to a lot of her contemporaries. Everyone from Courtney Love to Shirley Manson to Gwen Stefani would get her thunder. I like and admire all of the great female rockers that came out of the 90s but Cristina is my girl, to quote what John Waters said of Deborah Harry, "She was our generation's Elvis".
Cristina Martinez hasn't recorded or toured since 2001. She leaves behind a series of stunningly original albums and singles, some splendid videos (some she directed) and for the people that were fortunate enough to see her live some incredible memories. She is spotted occasionally, with her partner of 20 years Jon Spencer, in New York where she lives. She has a reputation of being a great mother and person which is ultimately more important than being just another rock star. Most of her work is out of print and hard to find, I hope that she someday soon she is re-discovered and returns to lay to waste the increasingly plastic idea we have of female rockers. Until then I will just remember an lovely unnoticed woman, of proud Spanish descent, who wore her genius on her sleeve, and genius never looked or sounded so good.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Seven)

It seems like every great artist has at least one album in their catalogue that is universally ignored due to the greatness of the album that proceeded it. How often is The Stones' Goat Heads Soup mentioned in the shadow of Exile On Main St. or how about the third Oasis platter Be Here Now after What's The Story Morning Glory? All the great ones from The Beatles and The Beach Boys up to The White Stripes and Radiohead have made great works that have suffered simply due to comparison.
January and February of 1969 is a month that occupies a special place in rock history, specifically 6 days in January and 5 days in February. These 11 days would mark the legendary Elvis Presley American Studio sessions in Memphis, Tennessee. Much has been written about these sessions, Elvis Costello would label the performances supernatural and I'm not sure a better word could have been chosen to describe them.
The American sessions are the sound of an artist at not only his absolute peak but reaching past it. Elvis in that studio is Picasso in his Blue Period and Hemingway writing Old Man And The Sea. This is the sound of a man coming out of a self imposed shell and re-discovering magic, a man getting his soul back against all obstacles.
There has never been a voice as pure as Elvis' during these sessions. Rumor has it that he had a cold early on when in one night he layed down Long Black Limousine, This is The Story and Wearin That Loved On Look. Listening to these songs you can hear the sound of a man shaking off the shackles of a long imprisonment, the voice that Dylan said would break you out of your own prison. No-one has ever been as good as Elvis in these hours of recording.
To many rock and music historians the only album that came out of these sessions was From Elvis in Memphis. It's the album that typically pops up on the great all time albums lists and it is the lp that is remembered. It is often overlooked that there was a second album, a work that has long since almost vanished into obscurity even though it features some of the greatest performances of Elvis Presley's career.
Back In Memphis, with it's dark live photo of Elvis looking like a ghost coming back for war, was originally issued as part of a set called From Vegas To Memphis. One record recorded live in Vegas while the studio sessions lay nearly hidden in the back sleeve. History has placed these ten tracks as near outtakes to the great From Elvis In Memphis sides but a closer inspection not only reveals ten great tracks but one of the most cohesive records Elvis ever delivered.
The opening, Eddie Rabbit penned, track Inherit The Wind sets the tone. Like other albums I have focused on in this series, from Watertown to Houston, we are dealing with a man in isolation. Backed by the incredible American studio house band, including the great Reggie Young on guitar, Elvis is in top from here. The backing female vocals give the song a strange feel that is complimented by the string section that producer Chips Moman would add on later. The song's odd time signatures coupled with Moman's production gives the song a perfect swaying feel that is punctuated by Elvis' reminder of what it's like to indeed Inherit the Wind.
This is The Story follows, and this as mentioned dates from that first historic night Elvis stepped into American studios. The tragic tone is set here for the album, and when Elvis sings 'but the words that I'm reading could apply to myself' we realise why he didn't have to be a songwriter, once he sang a song it was his, they were his autobiography.
Percy Mayfield's startling Stranger In My Own Hometown follows. This is the most rocking track on the album and the most haunting. This is the sound of a man confronting a city that had witnessed the assignation of Martin Luther King less than a year earlier. Elvis' sorrow at this event has been recounted by both Celeste Yarnall and Jerry Schilling, perhaps more than If I Can Dream this is his reaction to it. It's an explosive, surging performance that stands with his greatest work. The song's ferocious climax features one of the strangest horn arrangements ever put on vinyl and Elvis screaming off mike 'Blow your brains out.' He would revisit this song later in his career and re-invent the idea of a blues man in a frightening laid back chronicle of alienation and despair. Anyone who doesn't understand the genius of Elvis Presley should listen to this song.
Just a Little Bit Of Green and Elvis' lovely reading of Neil Diamond's great And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind are sublime examples of sixties pop at his best. More importantly the album never loses it's chronicling of a man who has denied love. Every track leads up to the album's final upcoming declaration making this, even more than I'm 10,000 Years Old, the great Elvis concept album.
Bobby Russell's dark and brooding Do You Know I Am with it's near whispered vocal and far-away tambourine is the calm at the center of the storm. The regret and longing are starting to kick in and it's the perfect opener for a side that's yearning for forgiveness.
Ned Miller's From A Jack To A King was one of Elvis' fathers Vernons favorites. The most playful and country sounding song on the album still fits in perfectly with the idea of lost love and Elvis delivers a slyly comical rendition that provide a brief respite from the darkness that would follow.
The Fair's Moving On would provide the album with some of it's most haunting imagery, with it's portraits of a packing and vanishing carnival and love affair. Bobby Wood's piano playing is particularly impressive as is Moman's kaleidoscope production that surrounds Presley's soulful vocal.
Back in Memphis concludes with two of Elvis' most impressive and greatest performances. Mort Shuman's You'll Think Of Me opens with Reggie Young on Sitar instead of guitar and it's that instrument that takes the lead throughout the song, providing an exotic counterpoint to the perhaps the most soulful vocal performance Elvis ever gave. The song was used as the b-side to the legendary Suspicious Minds and had remained all but hidden in the years since it's release. It is perhaps the great lost jewel in Elvis' crown, listening to it now it's hard to imagine a singer more in tune with all that a song can symbolically give. No-one, not even Sinatra at his most impassioned, has melded together with a song like this one. This song is Elvis Presley.
The album closes with Danny Small's Without Love, and we find our narrator (and I would say Elvis himself) realizing that 'without love, I am nothing at all'. With Bobby Wood again on piano, we find Elvis at his rawest. Paul Westerberg would later write, 'Remember me, I used to wear my heart on my sleeve', and he could have easily been describing Elvis singing this song. Recorded on the final night of the January sessions, and shortly before Suspicious Minds, it gives the album an uncommonly powerful conclusion. We are still with the same person from Inherit The Wind but we have witnessed him changing and ultimately growing. Of all of the concept albums that have gained fame, perhaps only The Pretty Things S.F. Sorrow came to such a resonate and deceptively simple conclusion.

Back In Memphis is out of print in the United States. You can find the songs on Suspicious Minds: The Memphis Anthology or The Sixties Masters box set. Without a doubt the best way to hear the songs is the 24 bit Japanese remaster that comes in a beautiful cardboard lp sleeve reproduction. The sound quality on this release is mindblowing and gives us some of the most spacious and warm sound on any Elvis release.

Elvis Presley would continue his hot streak and record an equally impressive number of sides a year later in Nashville. These sessions, known now as The Nashville Marathon, would produce two masterpieces, That's The Way It Is and I'm About Ten Thousand Years Old. Studio work would be sporadic after that and the last few sessions would find him producing some of his best and worst work, but they all came from his heart. Elvis said in 1969 that he would never record anything he didn't believe in again, and he never did.

The Re-Making Of John Lennon

Growing up, John Lennon was my favorite Beatle. It was always like that, I seemed to gravitate towards his material more than Paul or George's and his was the first of the solo Beatle catalogues that I began to collect.
Sometime within the past couple of years that began to change for me. I found myself listening to Ram more than Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass more that Sometime In New York City. Suddenly I seemed to have more books on my shelf about Paul rather than John. Tastes change I thought and I will always have a deep love for John and his work but around my thirtieth birthday I came to the conclusion that I was now a Paul man.
A friend made a joke to me that it was because I had mellowed, that same old idea that Paul was just the cute one still reverberates. An amazing book published a few years in Britain called The Unknown Paul McCartney shows clearly that Paul, much more than John, was the experimenter. As we get farther away from The Beatles, myths will become much more resonate than fact. This is happening in the worst and most extreme way with the legacy of John Lennon.
I realized that it wasn't me mellowing out in my love for Paul, it is the sad truth that in society's eyes that John is becoming the dreaded 'cute one'.
This isn't going to be a post bashing Yoko Ono. I have a deep respect for her as a woman and artist but one has to wonder who exactly is she marketing John Lennon to and why.
The last few years have seen McCartney make two of his finest albums, I would argue that there are moments on Chaos and Creation that are among his finest works. He has also been dragged across the coals by an incredibly messy divorce and by Beatles fans who seem to blame him for having the gall to keep living. Paul has become harder since Linda McCartney died, I don't mean personally but artistically it's given him a demon to fight. There is nothing cute about the sceaming Run Devil Run or the magnificent Rushes.
Something very different is happening with John Lennon. I was in a Starbucks recently and their cd of the month is a Lennon collection made exclusively for Starbucks. John Lennon's music wasn't made for a gigantic coffee chain, just like his image wasn't made for boxer shorts and fleece blankets. We are losing the main thing that distinguished John Lennon from the majority of his peers and the thing that was his biggest asset, his anger.
There is a moment on the amazing Who box set Maximum R and B where you here Pete Townshend kicking Abbie Hoffman off the stage. It's a raging definitive moment where Townshend is separating himself and The Who from the blossoming hippie movement. Lennon, even perhaps more that he realized shared a lot of Townshend's rage. For all of his activism and talk of peace John Lennon was always that angry young punk rocker who grew up worshiping Elvis and understood that a major element of Rock and Roll was personal exorcism.
One of the things that made Lennon so important was that he took the early energy of Elvis and Little Richard and he combined it with some of the most introspective songwriting that has ever been written. A damaged soul who never, at least in his music and I'm guessing in his life, got over the death of his mother. Listening to John Lennon at his rawest is like listening in on a confessional, an angry loud screaming testimony. This was a man who truly lived for Rock and Roll, if he hadn't had that it's hard to imagine what would have happened to John Lennon.
None of this is to discount the peace loving, humorous and ultimately tender aspect of Lennon and his work but those sides of him are being pushed so much onto people, especially younger people, I can imagine in a few years the nightmare of walking into a Wal-Mat and seeing something like 'John Sings Songs of Peace for Your Youngest' or designer baby cribs with partial lyrics to Imagine scrolled down the side.
I remember I first started to notice this new Lennon being pushed onto the public in the late 90's during the Come Together tribute. A sickening sweet candy coated concert that would have made you think that John Lennon was the most one dimensional cartoon character that ever lived. Only Lou Reed seemed to remember who he was saluting with a pulverising Jealous Guy. The memory of Kevin Spacey breaking out into Mind Games towards the end of that show still causes me nightmares.
Even the legendary lost weekend is becoming glossed over to the point of being erased. This dark period, away from Yoko, which had an at times ferocious child like Lennon getting arrested for assault and making some of the best and worst music of his life is becoming just a 'cute' footnote.
The quick mythologizing of Lennons final album, Double Fantasy, predicted the directions things were going to go. A critical and commercial disappointment upon released, soon after his death these bad reviews and poor sales were forgotten and people now view the album as being a triumphant comeback. Ironically it's that rose colored view that has made one of his most interesting works one of the least discussed. Songs like the brutal I'm Losing You and Milk and Honey's Stepping Out are among the best he ever wrote, but they also call into question the supposed perfect life in the Dakota that his last few years are currently being portrayed as. These songs, among others that question the marital bliss and perfect father, call into question everything that is more and more being accepted about the 'truth' of John Lennon.
In an odd way I am almost grateful for this shameful commercialization and softening of Lennon. It's made me go back and re-acquaint myself with his work and life. I didn't realize how much I missed that power and anger. I had forgotten how much a song like Isolation or I've Found Out could speak to me. Ironically, the forces in power that have attempted to change Lennon have brought his true spirit back to me. I worry about younger fans though and people who aren't intested in the truth that Lennon famously said he wanted. I worry about those people who might get there introduction to one of our greatest angry young men through a Starbuck's exclusive.
I have no idea what the future will hold for John Lennon's legacy. This sugaring might continue fo generations but I can only hope that the music will win out. That's the one thing that can't be sanitized, they can wrap the spirit of Lennon up in an American Flag and send it across the globe but they won't be able to change his words and music. For everyone that chooses the 'edited for content' version I can only hope there will be just as many that fall in love with one of our most primal and necessary screams.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Nine)

We need to be a little kinder to the few remaining popular music geniuses we have. We are running seriously low these days, perhaps the sixties and seventies spoiled us. Looking back at those decades it was like a new one was popping up out of Britain, France or America every other week. Since that moment when Elvis Presley first starting singing "That's All Right" in between takes with Scotty Moore and Bill Black joining in it seemed like we would never run out of people who would really be willing to take a chance. But in the past ten years it has begun to happen. Every year brings new talent but the true visionary is dying out. Perhaps it was inevitable, I mean how much can you do with sound in popular music?
David Holmes is these days best known as a top soundtrack composer, and why not? His scores for Out Of Sight, Oceans Eleven and Oceans Twelve among others have provided some of the most thrilling music of the past decade. The popularity of his film scores has unfortunately overshadowed his solo work as well as his powerful funk group The Free Association. At this date nearly all of his most innovative and influential music has slipped out of print in the States. Much like The Velvet Underground, Big Star and countless other under appreciated in their times acts, his work now resides in cut out and used record store bins. Check those 99 cent bins carefully next time you are at your favorite record haunt, you might just find something that will change your life.
David Holmes has had two big strikes against him in the rock community. Anytime the words DJ and Dance are mentioned many rock fans will recoil away in horror. It is there loss, since the sixties much dance music has at times been the most innovative around, but wait David Holmes doesn't perform typical dance music. The there is the DJ moniker, and an Irish DJ no less. Holmes did start out his career as a club DJ, and still spins on occasion, but his eclectic mixes would alienate as many clubbers as those that he would turn on. So, David Holmes isn't your typical DJ. Actually he isn't your typical anything which is one thing that adds to his allure, even his soundtrack work differs from most composers who only want their work featured. One of Holmes most enduring characteristics is his love for his record collection, and his need to bring it to us.
After Djing in his native Belfast as a teenager Holmes recorded his first album, The Films Crap Lets Slash The Seats, in 1995. He was 26 years old and the double cd films inspired set was well received but it was overlong and remains Holmes' least essential work. He would get some producing and remixing jobs from it though and he would soon start to plan the follow up.
After the death of Sarah Veronica Holmes, whom his second album would be dedicated to, Holmes wound up Djing in New York City. Inspired by the city and especially the people in it Holmes got the idea to start recording conversations on his daily walks through the New York streets. These snatches of colorful conversations would provide the genesis for the album he was getting ready to record, the first of his decade long string of masterpieces, 1997's Let's Get Killed.
Many albums have featured samples of found conversation but none have ever sounded like Let's Get Killed. In fact Holmes second album really doesn't sound like anything else. While it was recorded ten years ago, it sounds like something that is going to be recorded in about twenty years from now.
The album begins with a track entitled "Listen, 49 seconds of Street Noise" and an anonymous New Yorker telling us why New York is the greatest city on earth. "Listen", without a break goes directly into the single, "My Mate Paul". This track is one of the least groundbreaking on the album but it has a nice dub progressed sound scape that lasts for over five minutes. All of Holmes work is cinematic in nature and this is obviously the albums opening credits, the sampled drum loop that plays throughout is particularly nice. Holmes continually messes with the drum's time signature, giving the song a dizzying feel. It sounds repetitive at first but further listen s reveal a very complex track that Holmes has built from a variety of sources that would undergo many transformations on future remixes.
The title track is next and here we are presented with our first snatched conversation. The track has a chilling film noir feel to it and the violent narration is carried through by a propulsive drum pattern. It's here that the album really begins to take shape as Holmes begin to throw in a barrage of sound effects and samples.
The classic "Gritty Shaker" follows, one of Holmes signature tracks and another single off the album. More traffic noise and this time dialogue from what sounds like a street psychic rambling on about money, sex and past presidents. It's the kind of dialogue that can't be written, it is too naturally shambolic and features the great line, "I advise you to become a lawyer because you are going to have to represent yourself some day."
The delightful "Gritty Shaker" flows directly into the rap of "Head Rush On Lafayette", made entirely out of a frantic drum pattern and a rhyme that sounds like something off of a Last Poets album.
One of the more mellow moments on the record follows. Entitled "Rodney Yates" and resembling his later soundtrack work on Oceans Eleven, this track features incredible guitar work by Keith Tenniswood and a lovely Holmes Synth track that is reminiscent of Eno. It is one of the most ambient feeling of all the tracks but it never loses it's groove. One of Holmes' great moments.
The next track is one of Holmes most audacious moments. Beginning with an argument over who is the best, John Shaft or James Bond. Coming right off the immortal line, "James Bond was Hispanic" Holmes rips into his own version of the immortal Bond theme. A completely retooled masterwork of one of the most famous themes on earth. Samples come in and out but it's the crazed Samba like feel that takes the track over the edge. Much better than Paul Okenfield's later commissioned James Bond remix, this track smokes and is a splendid tribute to the Bond films that Holmes loved so much as a youth in Ireland.
More dialogue in "The Parcus and Madder Show" is followed by a track that would have been right at home of Sandinista by The Clash, "Slasher's Revenge". A top dub track that still has echoes of the Bond theme, like us Holmes can't quite get it out of his head.
"Freaknik", with it's opening dialogue of a guy just thrown out of a downtown punk club, is one of the only sort of dance tracks on the record. Holmes can't resist challenging expectations though as he continues to play start-stop with the rhythm.
"Caddell Returns" opens with a junkie lamenting about all of the drugs he has taken and ends with, "I can't even tell you what day it is." One of the most soulful spots on the album and predicting the future Free Association project that Holmes would throw himself into later. The Bond theme comes back in again briefly and then suddenly the album shifts into one of the most beautiful moments Holmes has ever put onto vinyl, with a sample of Patti Smith's "Easter". It's a dramatic, haunting turn where we hear Holmes tipping his hat to one of New York's finest. It's also a reminder of why Holmes pissed so many people off in the club world, whether it was closing his sets with Elvis Presley's "If I Can Dream" or sampling one of Patti Smith's most tender moments, he was never willing to pander to expectations. This is a guy who will beyond all else, always deliver the unexpected.
The album's, and David Holmes, most jaw dropping moment is the penultimate track. Entitled "Don't Die Just Yet", Holmes deliverers and audacious reworking of the legendary "Cargo Culte" off Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson. This was the first time many people would have heard this remarkable piece of music as most hipsters and music lovers were just starting to immerse themselves in the legend of Gainsbourg. Holmes delivers us a mission statement on this track and it is an extraordinary moment. On first listen he has barely touched the song but the subtle and substantial differences will be apparent to anyone who worships Melody Nelson. Holmes damn near tops Gainsbourg's original on the album version. He manages to bring British music dance, New York punk and the historically unfairly maligned French music scene together in six breathtaking minutes. It's right up there with the finest Portishead, Bjork and Massive Attack moments of the 90's most progressive and daring music.
The album ends with "For You", in which we hear our passenger exiting his cab and stepping out into the street. More voices that have their first and only album appearance, immortalized on vinyl by someone who appreciated that they deserved to be heard.
Steven Soderbergh would hear Let's Get Killed and asked Holmes to record his the film he had began work on, Out Of Sight. It was a match made in heaven and Holmes has just finished up Soderbergh's Oceans Thirteen. He would record another solo masterpiece entitled Bow Down To The Exit Sign in 2000, this time utilizing singers over snatched conversations. His mix albums have become the stuff of legend and have turned on, for those lucky enough to hear them, many young people to a wide variety of music they had have never heard before.
He continues searching through old records trying to find sounds and moments that touch him. He was the one responsible for unearthing Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" and sent it to Soderbergh to use in Ocean's Eleven. Holmes refused to remix the Presley song though as he said he didn't want to touch perfection or perhaps even more appropriate was when he would say, "It was already as funky as fuck." This refusal led to Junkie XL remixing it and having a global smash number one hit, but it was Holmes who was responsible for digging it up.
David Holmes has slowed down a bit in the past year or so. As much as I love his soundtrack work I hope that he continues cutting his own albums. His solo catalogue represents some of modern musics most unknown treasures, his best music may be lost in your corner store's cut out bins but it will be someday be re-discovered by those adventurous enough to dig.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter 13) Bryan Ferry The Bride Stripped Bare

Bryan Ferry's furious 1978 release THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE was a relative failure upon initial release and is now mostly remembered in the context of Jerry Hall leaving him for Mick Jagger. Rolling Stone exclaimed in the headline of their original negative review that the album was "more Edith Piaf than Muddy Waters" and I always wondered why that was considered a bad thing.
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is one of the great break-up albums of all time as it is an album that had Ferry responding to punk and the criticism he had fell under after his first solo albums.
No band had been more progressive or acclaimed than Roxy Music in the early seventies but by the time of the brilliantly subversive MANIFESTO and FLESH AND BLOOD they were becoming more and more disdained by groups and critics who had forgotten what the word irony meant. So THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is an incredibly ambitious album, one that sees Ferry trying to answer his critics with a reminder that he could indeed rock while still maintaining the cool and slightly sinister air that he had developed for himself with Roxy Music.
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is an album obviously made by a man in distress. It is one of the most authentically paranoid albums ever recorded and it is a startling cohesive album considering it is a mixture of original songs and cover versions.
Ferry is one of the great underrated singers of the rock era, he is an extremely talented song stylist who has the unique ability (like one of his idols Elvis Presley) to take seemingly any kind of song and make it uniquely his own. He is also an incredibly important songwriter and when he is at the top of his game (FOR YOUR PLEASURE, COUNTRY LIFE, FRANTIC) he is pretty unmatchable.
Ferry had been unhappy with 1977's IN YOUR MIND, even though it contained several astonishing tracks and the brutally good guitar work of Chris Spedding, and he wanted THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE to signal a new beginning for him.
The album opens with the surprisingly volcanic SIGN OF THE TIMES, one of the shortest and most potent songs Ferry has ever recorded. It's crunching twin guitar attack of Waddy Watchel and Neil Hubbard combined with some of Ferry's most biting lyrics proved a thrilling starting point. The single famously failed at the height of the punk movement but it holds up just as good as say anything off The Clash's second album that was released around the same time. When Ferry spits out, "Here is a rainbow for your hair" we know that glam is truly over and that we are in the midst of something far more desperate and real.
The album's second track, CAN'T LET GO, is its most famous as Ferry and Roxy Music have revisited it live many times throughout the years since THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE original. Again the duel guitar work by Watchel and Hubbard is incredible and Ferry delivers one of his most pained and impassioned performances. Never has anyone so known for being so cool, that they are almost cold, sounded so vulnerable. The song has been looked at as an obvious message to Jerry Hall but there is the sense that Ferry is singing also to the time period that he came from that was obviously disappearing.
The albums next two tracks were two of the most surprising choices of Ferry's career up to that point. The famous soul track HOLD ON I'M COMING had been a major hit for Sam and Dave in the sixties and Ferry's crunchy version is a fine cover with again his impassioned vocals carrying the track. Even more surprising was the tough version of J.J. Cale's SAME OLD BLUES. Ferry sounds absolutely possessed with anger on this track with Alan Spenner's impressive bass playing standing out.
The gorgeous ballad WHEN SHE WALKS IN THE ROOM marks the albums halfway point and it's a lovely track with Ferry singing lines like, "And your fair weathered friends fail to speak, they're so afraid still waters run deep". The song's final few moments with Ferry and Waddy Watchel harmonizing the title is incedibly haunting and absolutely devastating sounding when you consider what Ferry was going through at this point in his life and career.
Al Green's TAKE ME TO THE RIVER shows just how much bad luck Ferry was having at this point. Originally ridiculed for his version, it would soon become a monster hit for the Eno produced Talking Heads with David Byrne obviously more inspired by Ferry's version than Green's original.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE'S masterpiece follows with Ferry's thunderous stab at The Velvet Underground's WHAT GOES ON. Ferry transforms Lou Reed's original into a frustrated and impassioned plea and when he suddenly starts incorporating lyrics from The Velvets BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT into the mix we are caught in one of Ferry's great moments. The accompanying video featuring a bearded and weary looking Ferry is one the indelible images in a career full of them.
Another beautiful ballad follows in CARRICKFERGUS and like CAN'T LET GO we have Ferry admitting his inability or need to move on. It's a lovely version of a much often performed traditional Irish song.
One last cover is THAT'S HOW STRONG MY LOVE IS and Ferry's version hearkens back to not only Otis Reddings version but ironically Mick Jagger's vocal take on The Rolling Stones cover. All is fair in love and war it seems.
The eerie THIS ISLAND EARTH closes the album and it would have been right at home on one of Roxy Music's early albums. It is worth noting that Ferry's excellent keyboard work here resembles some of Eno's solo albums from this period which gives a good example that these two have always been in a way connected.
Ferry has recently returned to THIS ISLAND EARTH with some remarkable live performances and a BBC session which saw this great lost track getting an amazing response. It is one of Ferry's loneliest numbers and one of his best.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE was Bryan Ferry's biggest gamble and biggest failure in the decade which he owns as much as David Bowie or any other iconic figure you can think up. It was troubled from the beginning as it was originally planned as a double album (the scrapped songs showed up later as b-sides) and an odd, half-hearted marketing campaign sealed it's fate.

The album is not often mentioned among Ferry's best and while it doesn't have the majestic draw of his greatest albums it does give us a rare glimpse of one of our coolest and most important artists at his most open and vulnerable.

Ferry's newest album, Dylanesque, has just been released and the much anticipated new Roxy Music studio album will hopefully arrive later this year.

Please note that the above WHAT GOES ON sleeve collage comes from the remarkable THESE VINTAGE YEARS site. Visit them at www.vivaroxymusic.com for a comprehensive and up to date guide to the wonderful world of Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry.

Vadim's Prettiest Maid: Barbara Leigh

One of the great question marks in 1970's American cinema for me is how Barbara Leigh did not become a major star. Easily one of the most beautiful and charismatic women of the period her career was unfortunately made up of mostly supporting roles in smaller and sometimes forgettable films.
One of the major disappointments in Barbara Leigh's career was the unmade Hammer production VAMPIREllA, a part Leigh was born to play. Highlights of Leigh's career include VELVET VAMPIRE directors Stephanie Rothman's STUDENT NURSES and TERMINAL ISLAND, a small role opposite Steve Mcqueen in Sam Peckinpah's underrated JUNIOR BONNER, as Rock Hudson's wife in Roger Vadim's PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW and opposite Fred Williamson in BOSS MAN.
Leigh was also a wonderful model and her Native American themed Playboy appearance is one of the magazine's most memorable of the seventies.
Highly recommended is Leigh's autobiography entitled THE KING, MCQUEEN and THE LOVE MACHINE. Here she provides a compulsively readable book accounting her love affairs with Elvis Presley, Steve Mcqueen and James Aubrey as well as a fine account of a life in film that is filled with as much hope and disappointment as 300 or so pages can hold.
Leigh remains an extremely beautiful woman who has a fine website at http://www.barbaraleigh.com/
Here you can find many photos and info on how to get her book.

Rick Nelson: Rocks Past and Future Prince

Despite selling millions of albums and being well known all over the world, I don't think music lovers in general realize just how good and important the late Eric Hilliard Nelson was.
Many thoughts go through my head when I think of Ricky Nelson these days. I often remember hearing his music for the first time when I was in growing up courtesy of my father's record collection. I had never before, or since, heard a rock voice so brilliantly subtle and relaxed. I remember staring at the covers of those albums at this impossibly beautiful young man, and feeling like I was looking at someone very real. The honesty reflected in the eyes on any photograph of Rick is inherent in his music. As much as his unaffected vocals or scorching James Burton guitar licks, the records of Ricky Nelson are all the products of a very sincere and very serious dreamer.
Ricky was of course known to millions of people before he could have even fully grasped what fame was. First on the legendary OZZIE AND HARRIET radio show as the scene stealing precocious 'Little Ricky' and then later on the even more famous and influential television show. America grew to know and love Ricky Nelson perhaps before he even had a chance to really know who Ricky Nelson was.
The story of how he got into music is often repeated. Like every other teenager in 1956 Ricky was entranced by Elvis Presley and the freedom his records offered. Always the consummate searcher Ricky discovered Elvis' legendary Sun sides, which in turn led him to the searing rockabilly of Carl Perkins. In Elvis and Perkins he found a sanctuary from the fame and the 'Little Ricky' that everyone in the country thought they knew.
I think about the 16 year old Ricky sitting in his bedroom, like a million other teenagers, listening to those astonishing Sun and early RCA sides over and over again. Only Ricky already had the fame that most teenagers dreamed of, for Ricky the thing he must have wanted was the authenticity of those recordings.
So the story goes that Ricky was rejected by a girl who was obsessed by Elvis, and in a moment of rare bravado he said he was going to cut a record. A quick little thought out ploy to get a girl would soon turn into one of the most important careers in rock history.

The moment that Ricky Nelson comes on the screen at the end of the OZZIE AND HARRIET episode RICKY THE DRUMMER and sings Fats Dominoes I'M WALKIN is one of the great and seminal moments in rock history. Ricky looks nervous and self conscious but there is already something in his eye and voice, that authenticity that he so longed for seemed somehow inherent in him. Ricky Nelson singing I'M WALKIN that fateful evening brought rock and roll into a uncountable number of households that would have never let it in otherwise.
The key to Ricky's entire career is rebellion. Long mistaken for being a safe performer, we can see now that Nelson almost immediately went against Ozzie's musical tastes to form his own very distinct sound. Key to this was the band that he put together shortly after the I'M WALKING single. Headed by a teenage guitar player named James Burton, Ricky and his band cut a prolific and astonishingly great number of singles and albums in the next few years that would, for a period, outsell even Elvis.
With tracks like POOR LITTLE FOOL, STOOD UP and especially BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY the team of Ricky Nelson and James Burton was an unstoppable force. Burton's shimmering and always inventive guitar work matched with Ricky's unmatchable laid back vocal style will still send chills up even the most jaded music fans necks. The albums during this period are also incredible in that even the lesser more dated tracks still stand out due to this pair's inventive and exhaustive work. Add on the uncredited Jordanaires and you have some of the greatest records of the rock era.
BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY especially sounds like a revolution all on its own, with Burton's amazing solo laying a virtual blueprint for thousands of players to follow.
Ricky Nelson always seems to be a man haunted by some inner fear that he wasn't as authentic as he wanted to be. He wasn't black, he wasn't poor, he wasn't from the South. All of these things seemingly against him only added to a hard work ethic that would run through him till the day he died.
One story that I love, and that I think says a lot about Rick was the first time he met Elvis. He had been invited to a party Elvis was at and spent most of the night alone in a corner, terrified of meeting his idol. When Elvis found out that Rick was at the party he searched him down and immediately started quoting OZZIE AND HARRIET lines to show that he never missed an episode. Rick was said to be almost moved to tears, and he quickly became close to Elvis and the two would play football together throughout the sixties while Elvis was in Hollywood.
After cutting the incredibly moving TRAVELLIN MAN and playing opposite Dean Martin in RIO BRAVO Rick's career hit a down point. With the arrival of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the rest of the British Invasion, Rick's records suddenly began to sound a little too safe and quaint. Ironically, and probably unknown to Rick, he had been one of McCartney and Lennon's biggest influences. McCartney still rhapsodizes about him when the occasion arrives and often covers his haunting LONESOME TOWN.
Throughout the mid sixties Rick tried a lot of things, all with mixed results. A failed film with his wife called LOVE AND KISSES, a tv musical with Burt Bacharach and a somewhat psychedelic album called PERSPECTIVE. Everything seemed to fall slightly short, and then even the long running OZZIE AND HARRIET ran out of steam and was cancelled. The world was changing and it seemed like 'Little Ricky' would fade quietly from view.
The origins of the genre known as country rock have always been a bit confused. Many people seem to put ground zero at The Byrd's incredible SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO, but often overlooked is a little selling album from 1966 by Ricky entitled BRIGHT LIGHTS COUNTRY MUSIC.
Ricky Nelson's sudden jump into country music surprised the few people who noticed but it shouldn't have. He was that same teenage boy who had always dreamed of that Southern authenticity he had heard in those Sun sides.


In 1968 Ricky would do a total makeover, no longer called Ricky the new Rick would re-surface with long hair and the the incredible LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR album, and a powerful single of Bob Dylan's SHE BELONGS TO ME.
The period of 68-73 is my favorite in Rick's career. Along with The Stone Canyon Band he would cut a series of incredible folk-rock albums mixing his own compositions with his current favorites (by the likes of Dylan, Tim Hardin, The Stones and more). The albums RICK SINGS NELSON, RUDY THE FIFTH, GARDEN PARTY and WINDFALL are among the finest in the country rock genre and would influence everyone from Linda Ronstadt to The Eagles. Rick's work in this period stands along with Graham Parson's as one of the purest ever meetings between rock and country.
RUDY THE FIFTH in particular is probably, along with the TROUBADOUR album, the greatest unknown record in Rick's canon. With strong songwriting, including a chillingly prophetic GYPSY PILOT that ends the album with the sound of a plane crash, to some of the best Bob Dylan covers ever, RUDY THE FIFTH is a bold work by Rick at his most confident.

After the famed GARDEN PARTY, perhaps Rick's finest and most well known triumpth, personal and career worries began to take hold. Rick toured constantly for the next few years trying to push his incredible new music onto audiences that were often puzzingly unreceptive.
The death of Elvis Presley in August of 77 shook Rick and reminded him of the music of his youth. After the disappointing failure of the overly slick INTAKES album, as well as the unreleased BACK IN VIENNA unreleased LP, Rick would spend much of 78 devising a record that would combine the early James Burton fueled rockabilly sides of his youth with his more grown up flavored folk rock.
ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE is one of the great unreleased records in rock history, Rick's winter of 78 masterpiece would foreshadow the emergence of an entirely new genre called cow-punk. You can hear the birth of bands like X, Lone Justice and The Stray Cats in these remarkable sides from that incredibly bitter winter after Elvis had died. Appearing on Saturday Night Live to promote the upcoming album, Rick delivered a haunting DREAM LOVER that should have become a huge hit. What happens next has still never been fully explained.
His record company made the odd decision to hold back the release of DREAM LOVER by several weeks killing the strong SNL word of mouth. Even more damaging then was the news that the company was going to shelve ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE after Rick refused to make it more commercial. Released in its place was a four track ep that only scratched at the surface of its greatness. The album was finally released in a glossy over produced version entitled THE MEMPHIS SESSIONS after Rick died. It remains the biggest missed opportunity in Rick Nelson's career.

More and more exhausting touring followed, and the beginnings of a messy divorce, until the release of the underrated PLAYING TO WIN album in 1981. This album would show Rick still at the top of his songwriting and performing game but no one seemed to notice.
The final few years of Rick's life have him touring at an impossible rate in order to pay off his mounting legal bills and take care of his sons. Disheartening and re-assuring was having an album back in the charts by 84 ALL MY BEST, which featured re-recordings of some of his biggest hits.
The final days of Rick Nelson are often looked upon as tragic, with him touring in one of those sad oldies package shows. But he still delivered performances every night that were worthy of his fine legacy.
Shortly before his death Rick participated in the MEMPHIS CLASS OF 55 record which reunited Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins back at Sun studios. At one point Carl Perkins came up to Rick and wrapped his arm around him and told him that they were two of the last 'originals' left. Rick would often recount this story to his sons, and it can be looked upon as the moment where "little Ricky" finally realized that he had possessed that authenticity, that he had so yearned for, all along.
Rick Nelson was killed on December 31st, 1985 in a plane crash along with the members of his band and some friends. The media quickly reported that it was drug related, although this was later proven unfounded and a complete falsehood.
Rick's music and life continues to captivate people all over the world, and a recent best of collection surprised everyone by jumping into the top forty in it's first week of sales. I still remember holding my father's albums and hearing Rick's amazing voice for the first time, and each time I play his music that same sincerity still shines through.
Bob Dylan would began to perform LONESOME TOWN in concert after Rick died. He would also write of how much he loved Rick's voice in his CHRONICLES book. Typically he would introduce LONESOME TOWN by saying that Rick had covered many of his songs so he wanted to pay him back and then add, "I had a lot of respect for that guy". It is a respect that I believe will continue to grow as Rick's music becomes more and more available again.

Essential to newcomers is the four cd box set LEGACY that covers Rick's entire career. All of his early albums with James Burton are essential for any serious rock fan and LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR and RUDY THE FIFTH are still astonishing, although much harder to find.
To go along with the respect that Dylan mentioned, I would just like to add...that I really admire and love this guy. Seek out some of his music if you don't have any in your collection, you might be surprised by how great and transcendent it is.

Life Rotates In 45 Revolutions Per Minute (Elvis Presley: His Latest Flame, Little Sister)

One of the most scorching 45s of the sixties is Elvis Presley's 1961 double sided masterpiece, (MARIE'S THE NAME OF) HIS LATEST FAME backed by LITTLE SISTER. It is hard to imagine a better single release than these Doc Pomus/Mort Shuman compositions that Elvis recorded in late June of 61 at Nashville's famed Studio B.
With Steve Sholes in the producer's chair and a studio full of musicians including legendary guitar players Hank Garland, Scotty Moore and Neal Mathews, the recording of HIS LATEST FLAME was described by Elvis historian Ernst Jorgenssen as "like a party." The song through several takes started out life as an almost Bo Diddley tribute but quickly merged into something altogether more progressive and astonishingly fresh sounding. Jorgensen points out in his great book A LIFE IN MUSIC that the musician's kept switching roles searching for the songs right sound while the 26 year old Elvis nailed each vocal take like he was possessed by it. After working through the night the song was finally completed and the results were sublime. HIS LATEST FLAME is one of the most masterful recordings of Elvis Presleys' career, from his honey dripped vocals to the astonishing tempo changes featuring Floyd Cramer's brilliant brief piano bursts.
HIS LATEST FLAME would hit the number one spot in the Fall of 61 and is one of the great moments on 2002's smash ELVIS 30 #1 HITS where that album's remastering brought out some incredibly sweet previously buried subtle moments. The Smiths would cover the song in the mid 80s to great effect and it remains one of the seminal Elvis A sides in a period often ignored.
Possibly even better was the singles B side, the ferocious LITTLE SISTER with the twin guitar attack of Scotty Moore on acoustic rhythm and Hank Garland's stunning electric lead. Garland's screaming electric opening on a borrowed Fender Jazz Master signals this as one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded and a middle finger to anyone who says Elvis didn't rock after the army.
The great Doc Pomus would remember that, "Elvis cut the tempo in half and slowed it down" which brought out the inherent menace of the recording even more. Recorded in just four takes with Elvis leading off the third one with one simple word, "BURN", the track sounds several years before its time and has been re-recorded countless times through the years.

LITTLE SISTER was also a hit but didn't chart as high as HIS LATEST FLAME. It's arguable which cut is better as they both could have been A sides. Elvis certainly revisited LITTLE SISTER more and would perform all the way up to that fateful year of 1977. A highlight to his concert film THAT'S THE WAY IT IS was him rehearsing the track and combining it with The Beatles GET BACK, as song which owed much to Elvis and LITTLE SISTER. The clip I am posting from Youtube is an unreleased moment from THAT'S THE WAY IT IS featuring Elvis performing the song along with GET BACK.

With the 45 becoming more and more of a distant memory it is great to remember a record that featured not one but two of the great moments in sixties rock. These are two masterpieces from one of the most underrated periods in The King's career.

David Hess in Writing For The King

The music of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was one of the first things that struck me about Wes Craven's brutal shocker when I first saw it in my teens. The film for all of its darkness and intensity featured a score that at times matched its nihilism and other times played against it. The most memorable piece of music was the haunting THE ROAD LEADS TO NOWHERE, a song which played a big part of Eli Roth's CABIN FEVER decades later.
The music to LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was composed by none other than David Hess, the intense and imposing psychopath Krug in the film. Pretty early on I noticed in certain articles about David Hess often mentioned that he had been David Hill in the early sixties and had written a number of famous songs including the great DADDY ROLLING STONE and most intriguingly I GOT STUNG recorded by none other than Elvis Presley.
It was hard to me for a long time to picture the star of Craven's film as well as similar roles in HITCH-HIKE and THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK as the writer of such sublimely well crafted songs. It seemed like two totally different worlds and David Hess was so good in these films that it was hard for me to come to terms with seeing him in another light.

Released last year was the mammoth book WRITING FOR THE KING. The book is an important one in that it is entirely centered on the amazing songwriters who contributed songs not just for Elvis but a number of popular music's greatest song stylists of the twentieth century. The format of the book is simple. Each chapter is dedicated to a songwriter, or songwriting team. Many are interviewed and for those that have passed. solid biographies are given. They all talk specifically and honestly about the songs that Elvis recorded and also about their lives, careers, disappointments and highpoints. It is a really unique book that gives voice to many who haven't been heard from before. The book also includes an entire cd of original demos by the songwriters that Elvis would have heard, as well as an unreleased live recording collection by Elvis himself. The demos cd is great because we can clearly hear these songs in their early stages, some fully formed and others almost just sketches. Also interesting to hear is how much Elvis would change and mutate them to his own voice and style. It is especially fascinating to listen to some of the demos attempting to sound like Elvis, it's a window into a fascinating world that most of us as music listeners aren't usually able to hear.
David Hess is one of the songwriters featured and his chapter is one of the best. He recalls his time as a singer in New York's Greenwich Village folk scene in the late fifties and getting hired early on by Shalimar music where he met the great Otis Blackwell. He talks of recording Blackwell's ALL SHOOK UP as David Hill before Elvis and finally landing a job at the influential Hill and Range company.
It was with fellow songwriter Aaron Schroeder that Hess wrote his most famous song, the delightfully catchy I GOT STUNG. Hess admits that for a long time he thought his demo was superior to Elvis' version but admits that, "Elvis' version has really stood up, I love it."
Hess goes on to talk honestly about Colonel Parker's business dealings and other trappings of the songwriting world. He mentions how much he admired Elvis' ability to phrase his singing, "from internal strife" and talks about the excitement of Paul McCartney's 'back to his roots' recording of I GOT STUNG.
Hess concludes with talking about some later movie songs he wrote for Elvis as well as some other non-Elvis tracks. He says, "I just love Elvis. I love what he did...we stopped at Graceland and I cried seeing what had happened to this incredibly talented genius. What makes Elvis great is his honesty. The only way he could sing was honestly."
Included in the Hess chapter is a great photo of Hess performing in New York in the fifties and a studio shot from the sixties. No mention is made of his later career as this book is just about their lives as songwriters and it is great to see attention given to this side of the talented Hess.
WRITING FOR THE KING is huge 400 page coffee table book that is essential reading for Elvis fans as well as people interested in the craft of songwriting. It contains interviews with many people you might not have heard of as well as many you have but guaranteed you will recognize most of these songs.
Below are two links. One is information on ordering this book and cd collection. The price might seem steep but it is more than worth it. The other link is David Hess' fine official site. Here you can read up on the man, his films and music. Several cds are available including THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT soundtrack as well as a demos and live collection. Hess continues to be a major force in front of the camera and is rumored to have recently been cast in Deodato's long awaited CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST sequel.
Hess' most memorable films including LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HITCH-HIKE, HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK and SWAMP THING are all currently on dvd from various companies. The special editions of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and HITCH-HIKE are highly recommended.

http://www.shopelvis.com/nshop/product.php?navgroup=0&view=detail&productid=EP-130-7060&dept=keyword+search&category=&page=&groupName=

www.davidhess.com

An Anniversary Worth Celebrating

Since we past the fifty year mark last year of Elvis' appearance on the Ed Sullivan show it seems like there will be an endless number popular culture anniversaries that can be celebrated. One that I didn't want to let pass was the fortieth anniversary of what I consider to be the most important album released in that watershed year of 1967.
The number of influential and mind bending albums released during 67 is staggering with just a few of the most notable being The Beatles SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, Pink Floyd's PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, Jefferson Airplane's SURREALISTIC PILLOW, The Kinks SOMETHING ELSE and I could go on and on. None of these, admittedly brilliant albums, compare though to my ears to one poor selling album that would have been gathering dust in the V section of your favorite local record store 40 years ago.
Released in March 1967, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO was an album unlike anything ever heard before. Although it barely scraped the bottom half of the top 200 in the spring of 67, for the people who bought it became a watershed moment. It is ground zero for modern music and I would argue the most influential album ever made.
With the financial and artistic support of Andy Warhol (credited as producer although Dylan producer Tom Wilson actually handled it) The Velvet Underground at this point was made up of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker and a tall German model and actress named Nico.
New Yorker Reed had met Welshman Cale a few years before while they were both employed at a knockoff songwriting and recording company. Reed's astonishing street wise poetry and feedback drenched guitar stylings and Cale's classical avant-garde training would soon collide into the most searing sounds rock had ever heard.
The story of how The Velvets formed and met up with Warhol has been repeated so many times that I won't go into it here so I will flash forward to the album itself and my thoughts on it.
The thing that continues to give THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO so much power after 40 years is that it simply sounds like nothing else in popular music. No matter how many thousands of bands that have attempted to copy it's sound or Reed's words, the album is still its own separate universe. It is also one of the few recordings that doesn't have a clear starting point. With Elvis you could hear many of the blues artists and pop singers that he had heard growing up and with pretty much everyone after him you can hear Elvis, but songs like VENUS IN FURS or THE BLACK ANGELS DEATH SONG don't seem to have any starting point. They still sound like a clear beginning, some sort of musical big bang that hadn't been dealt with in rock before.
I would never slight the contributions of Maureen Tucker's primal revolutionary drumming style, the crystal purity of Sterling Morrison on guitar or the haunting vocals of Nico but it is hard to deny that THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO's main elements are Lou Reed and John Cale.

I have heard the studio take of HEROIN probably over a thousand time and I have dozens upon dozens of live recordings of it but there is still a moment in its original VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO take that still gives me chills and causes me to stop whatever other thought processes I might be having. It's the section that features Reed singing one of the most brilliant and chilling passages in rock history,
"When the smack begins to flow
Then I really don't care anymore
About all the jim-jims in this town
And everybody putting everybody else down
And all of the politicians makin' crazy sounds
All the dead bodies piled up in mounds"
and then Cale's Viola literally sounds like it is taking off into a completely uncharted splintered universe. The sound of Cale's viola along with Tucker's rapid heartbeat like drumming has still been unmatched for all out intensity in rock. You'd have to pull out an Ornette Coleman-Don Cherry collaboration or one of Albert Ayler's wilder moments to sonically come even close to what The Velvet's are doing on this album, and it all falls into place that moment when it feels like Lou Reed and John Cale come face to face with the most impending of all darkness and the darkness retreats screaming.

Much has been made of Lou's lyrics on this album and it is all justified. No one before or since has managed to capture urban angst or the frustrations of addiction, depression and ultimately redemption better than Lou Reed. The journey that he began in these grooves with tracks like HEROIN continues to this day. Much more than being rock's dark prince Lou Reed has reminded us for forty years now that there is indeed light at the end of the longest and blackest tunnel.

Equally compelling is John Cale. Like Reed, Cale has had one of the most ferocious and compelling careers of the past four decades, consistently releasing as many masterpieces as any of his peers, including Lou. The sound captured on THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO is these two warriors stepping into the ring for the first time battling off every conceived notion that a serious music fan might have of rock music, and the final bell still hasn't sounded on them.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO is perfect in every respect beyond the most obviously brilliant tracks like HEROIN, WAITING FOR THE MAN and VENUS IN FURS. It contains some of the most startling ballads in Reed's catalogue like SUNDAY MORNING, FEMME FATALE and I'll BE YOUR MIRROR. These songs, with all of their doubt and vulnerability, still rank among the finest songs of lost love and yearning ever written. The album is also filled with a handful of perfect rock songs like THERE SHE GOES AGAIN, RUN RUN RUN and EUROPEAN SON that chronicle both Reed's and Cale's love for rock at it's purest. It was no coincidence when Cale turned Elvis Preseley's HEARTBREAK HOTEL into one of his greatest tracks as a solo artist or that Reed would cite Presley's THAT'S ALL RIGHT as the creation of rock music. For all of their avant-garde leanings, these guys really loved the basic foundation of rock and roll and that comes through clearly on this album, it just so happened that no one had ever played it quite like them before.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO was of course a major failure upon release and it is hard to cite the exact moment of when it began to become the legend it is. You can hear the rumblings of it when David Bowie began to cover I'M WAITING FOR THE MAN in the late sixties but the exact moment is near impossible to place. It just feels like the album wasn't there and then it was...the moment of its release is rock music's point of B.C and A.D.
Brian Eno has that famous quote about how only a few hundred people bought the first Velvet Underground album but they all started bands. That's one of the most accurate thoughts in rock history and starting with the first Roxy Music album you can began to see the creative string that THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO album had dangled for other artists to grab onto. After Roxy Music, a virtual catalogue of the greatest albums of the last thirties years sprang directly from the bruising sonic masterpiece of The Velvet's first lp. Album's like Pere Ubu's DUB HOUSING, PiL's METAL BOX, Jesus and Mary Chain's PSYCHOCANDY and My Bloody Valentine's LOVELESS all the way up to the upcoming White Stripes record would be unthinkable without the Velvets. Thousands of others ranging far and wide between Joy Division to Vanessa Paradis or Television to The Birthday Party have continually paid tribute to The Velvet's and the extraordinary legacy they left.
Nico would never record with the full unit again although she would work with Lou and Cale at different points in her audacious and always brilliant solo career. My favorite Velvet Underground album remains the follow up to THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO, the chaotic and pulverising WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT. That would be the only record with just the four core group members and to me it is their ultimate work. The third album and LOADED are also masterpieces and it is hard to think of another group that has such a perfect, if small, studio catalogue. Start at track one on THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO and go to the final track on LOADED and you have one of the most seamless and extraordinary bodies of artistic expression in music history.

I was 15 when I got my first copy of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO. It was on vinyl and there was a small scratch on the record that caused a rhythmic popping sound during FEMME FATALE. I often thought that little pop was my own little secret version of the album and it's that sound and the music on this remarkable album that have stuck with me now for nearly twenty years of my life. I have no doubt that it will be something that I will have with me when I take my own eventual exit into the great unknown Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker and Nico travelled to forty astonishing years ago.

"Until We Meet Again"

Thirty years ago tonight at Indianapolis's Market Square Arena an exhausted, disillusioned and sick Elvis Presley stepped onto a stage for the final time. He would be backed by his James Burton led TCB band, a band often described as one of the greatest live bands ever assembled, and he would perform 21 songs from all parts of his remarkable 23 year career. The reviews of the Indianapolis show were among the best of that emotionally and physically devastating 1977 Summer tour but the reality is that it is like many of the shows from that year, a combination of a tired artist walking through some songs while investing others with explosively spiritual readings that would show the last things to leave Elvis Presley were his voice and heart.
Much has been written about Elvis in that final fateful year of his life. It has always baffled me as to how people can take such glee in cruelly making fun of someone who was in such an obvious state of emotional and physical turmoil, but that is exactly what the last thirty years have brought. Whether it be the ill conceived CBS television special that was aired to pay off Colonel Parker's gambling debts, or the factually and spiritually corrupt Albert Goldman assignation job of a book in 1981 to people who have no conception of how important culturally and devastatingly talented this man was; 1977 and the years since have taken much away from the legacy of Elvis Presley.
The thing that strikes me most about that fateful final year is just how, even at his most vulnerable and damaged, great Elvis Presley remained. For all of the rushed through and lifeless performances that he gave that year, each show would also feature some of the most powerhouse vocals of his career. I'm not an apologist for Elvis in 1977. The man was sick and needed to be in a hospital and not on the stage but there are moments, like when he is singing HURT, HOW GREAT THOU ART, BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER and especially a exorcising UNCHAINED MELODY, that the most powerful aspects of Elvis come out. Also noteworthy is that this was clearly a man who was remembering something special from his past and the spirited performances of TRYING TO GET TO YOU, LITTLE SISTER and an acoustic driven THAT'S ALL RIGHT all point to the fact that Elvis seemed to be finding solace in much of the rock music of his youth. A planned rock and roll studio album was being discussed for late 1977 and with people like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and David Bowie clamoring to write and produce for him, the late seventies could have been a most glorious time of renewal for Presley.
But it wasn't meant to be and as tragic as the final year of Elvis Presely's life was, it is hard to imagine things any other way now. The site of Elvis Presley's final show was a sports arena built for the Indiana Pacers in 1974. Elvis had played there before but in that final show it has been reported that the 18,000 people that saw him thirty years ago tonight was the most the arena could hold.
The show was pretty typical for 1977 with the aforementioned THAT'S ALL RIGHT being the opening song after the 2001 theme played. The beguiling and always powerful CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE closed the set which included readings of songs ranging from YOU GAVE ME A MOUNTAIN to LITTLE SISTER to a surprising, for 77, I CAN'T STOP LOVING YOU. The final words Elvis Presley spoke on stage were, "Until we meet again, may God bless you...adios."
The Elvis Presley of 1977 was the same Elvis Presley who had stunned people in his legendary 1968 comeback special, just like he was the same man who had made millions of people happy in his 31 feature films, and the same person who had inspired every major rock artist of the sixties and seventies with his work in the fifties...and finally the Elvis Presley of 1977 was the same little boy who grew up in poverty stricken Mississippi dreaming he could reach something else. The career of Elvis Presley can be split up into parts but it should never be forgotten that this was the same man all the way through and there was still a lot of that young dreamer left in him even at the end. Elvis in 1977 is often described as 'old Elvis' which is a mistake because Elvis Presley never had the chance to grow old, he was just 42 when he died.

Like many landmarks Americans take a weird satisfaction in destroying, Market Square Arena was imploded a few years ago to a crowd of hundreds; a crowd that erupted in a mixture of boos and cheers when the destruction happened. It has always reminded me of a line Lou Reed wrote in 1989, "Americans don't care too much for beauty, they'll shit in a river and dump battery acid in a stream..then complain that they can't swim." There is a strong element in our country that takes a certain sick satisfaction in tearing down our landmarks and idols. Certainly for the last thirty years they have tried to do it to Elvis Presley and yet somehow he remains; like some sort of indestructible reminder that you can't kill a dream that millions of people have ended up sharing.

Elvis Presley was often described, throughout his life, as someone who wanted nothing more than to make the people around him happy, and up to those last moments when he walked off that Indianapolis stage he was still doing just that. His ultimate sacrifice for making people happy was finally his own life, which perhaps says as much about the world we live in as anything else ever could. Ironically, even thirty years after he sang those final notes, Elvis Presley continues to make millions upon millions of people happy...whether you are a fan or not, that is a fact that should be celebrated.

Boots Randolph R.I.P.

Legendary saxophonist Boots Randolph passed away yesterday at the age of 80. Boots was born just down the road a bit from me in Paducah, Kentucky and is probably best known for his monster hit, YAKETY SAX. I was supposed to see Boots live again in just a month or so at the big 30th Anniversary Elvis In Concert in Memphis. The couple of times I did get to see him live were always very exciting as he remained an incredible player even well into his seventies.
My favorite Boots Randolph moment comes on RECONSIDER BABY, the final track on the stunning ELVIS IS BACK album. Driven by Elvis' own rhythm guitar playing and ferocious vocal, Boots delivered one of the great X-Rated sounding Sax solos in rock history. 46 years after it was recorded, RECONSIDER BABY still sounds as fresh and amazing as the day that it was first hit the streets. Elvis and Boots would continue recording throughout the sixties and Randolph featured on several of Elvis' most underrated recordings from the period, including fantastic cuts like KING OF THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD and IT'S A LONG LONELY HIGHWAY.
Boots also played with many of the most legendary music figures of the sixties and seventies and recorded many fine solo albums. He was a musical force and a true original...my best to his family and friends.