A Complete Unknown - the life and times of Bob and Joan

Bob Dylan fans are abuzz about the new biopic 'A Complete Unknown' starring Timothee Chalomet, depicting Dylan's emergence in the early 1960s. 

Much has been made of Chalomet's resemblance to the young Dylan and his insistence on doing his own singing and playing in the movie. I've linked to the movie trailers at the foot of this piece.

I'm interested to see how the film, which opens on Christmas Day,  portrays the relationship between Bob and Joan Baez. It's a love story with an enduring fascination. Although their romance ended in the mid-60s, they have performed together many times over the years.

Baez nurtured Dylan's career early on, allowing him to share her stage and introducing him to the wider folk music world outside of Greenwich Village. She became his muse and musical sidekick and he was more than happy to use her as his jumping off platform. 

In later life, Dylan acknowledged the debt he owed to Baez, but he did a poor job of repaying it at the time. For her part, Joan was guilty only of blind devotion. 

For anyone who wants to delve deeper into the Bob and Joan backstory, I'd recommend David Hadju's excellent book 'Positively 4th Street'. Hadju weaves Bob and Joan's lives in with Joan's sister Mimi and her partner Richard Fariña. Mimi and Richard had their own musical partnership and Fariña was also a budding novelist. What separates the book from the many other Dylan biographies is the insight to how their everyday lives were intertwined and how their careers developed in quite different ways. 

Early in the story, Baez takes great pride in showing off her boyfriend to the folk music community and to the civil rights and peace movement (Ban The Bomb!) of the early to mid 60s. Their duets at Newport and concert halls across America are rightly held as historic moments. 

As Hadju's book notes: "This gorgeous woman, who is an icon in her own right, latches onto you and says, I'll be your everything, including being your lover. She adopted him. She found this guy who gave voice to all that powerful stuff, and she nurtured him in that role. He made out on every level."

Baez and Dylan in 1963

The candid chat between Bob and Joan in Martin Scorsese's 'Rolling Thunder Revue' movie, where they discuss how their lives diverged, is poignant because it's clear even then (1975) that Joan still holds a candle for him. Joan’s love for Bob goes way beyond the music, but it's really not clear how far Bob's love for Joan extends, beyond fond memories of their time together.  

As we saw in D.A. Pennebaker's movie 'Don't Look Back' about his UK tour in 1965, when Joan accompanied him to the UK, it was fairly obvious he didn't want her there. On that tour he didn't - as she had expected - reciprocate by inviting her onstage to perform with him.

Bob would later say he was just trying to deal with the craziness of his life at that point. He had created this monster, the voice of a generation. Everyone looked to Bob for the answer and his response was to be increasingly cryptic and surreal. Contemporary reviewers referred to Dylan as a poet - how he "knew" and how he was "telling it like it is". But as NME writer Mick Farren noted in a retrospective mid-1970s assessment of Blonde On Blonde, "If Dylan was really telling it like it is, we'd all know exactly what he was talking about."

But Hadju's book is not a story about doomed love. It shows a relationship in full bloom, noting how Bob and Joan had a similar sense of the absurd, and at times it appeared as if they were having a private joke against the world. 

"A lovely thing was happening and I didn't want it to end," Joan said later.

Hadju's story does have a tragic ending, with the death of Richard Fariña in a motorcycle accident in 1966, just as he was launching his first novel. It was his partner Mimi Baez’s 21st birthday. 

Three months later, Dylan came off his bike near his home in Woodstock, New York. He knew he could have died on his motorcycle, as Fariña had. Ironically, the accident offered him the perfect excuse to go into hiding.

Dylan wrote, in his memoir, Chronicles, Vol 1: “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”

Hadju wrote: “For a year and a half after the accident, Dylan stayed in seclusion in Woodstock, while rock musicians absorbed and drew upon his ideas.

Of Bob's classic mid 1960s albums, Hadju concludes, “The trio of records uniting poetry with elements of folk and rock and roll – Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and the double Blonde On Blonde, came to be acknowledged as pop masterworks and charted a whole new style of music."

Today, it seems that Bob and Joan are no longer in contact, but she no longer harbours any bitterness towards him, recognising that what they did together was unique and in many ways historically significant.

A Complete Unknown - movie trailer

A Complete Unknown featurette

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - It Ain't Me Babe (Live 1964)

Joan performs Dylan's Percy's Song, 1965

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - 2009 Documentary

Bob and Joan chat about their relationship, 1975

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan - I Shall Be Released - RollingThunder Revue, 1975

Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's artistic peak in the 1960s

Music while you work. Some recommendations

Working from home certainly has its advantages - it can actually make you more productive, as long as you keep the distractions to a minimum. Easier said than done, but I'm living proof that it's possible.

Distractions

My working life in the last 20 years has involved extended periods of travel, mostly around Asia, followed by several weeks of relative isolation in my workroom in Auckland, New Zealand.

One key component in balancing work and home life is music, so I've put together some suggestions for how music can make the WFH situation more enjoyable.

It's important to have structure to your day and to build any important  distractions formally into the day. So, for example, a 15 minute break, morning and afternoon, for some reading or guitar practice. 

In a home/work environment, some music sits better than others. If what I'm doing doesn't require too much creative concentration - data inputting, say - I'll go for something tuneful and engaging. In most cases, where I'm writing, I need music without a beat. As a drummer in another life, I find it hard not to zero in on the rhythm if I've got rock or funk music playing.

ECM Records

The answer is invariably the acoustic, analogue jazz and ambient music emanating from the German label ECM. Their remarkable catalogue has been described as 'the most beautiful sound next to silence'. What separates it from new age doodling is the quality of the composition, the playing and the recording.

The constant factor in the 'ECM sound' is Talent Studios in Oslo, Norway, where most of the classic albums were recorded by sound engineers Jan Erik Kongshaug and Martin Wieland. 

My collection of ECM records is mostly on vinyl and is largely from the label's classic period in the 1970s, when it still had people like Chick Corea and Pat Metheny on its roster. 

My favourite ECM artist is Ralph Towner - such a beautiful and uplifting guitarist, whatever mood you're in.

The catalogue is huge, but here are some recommendations based on my own collection:

ECM - the most beautiful sound next to silence

John Abercrombie/Ralph Towner - Sargasso Sea
Anouar Brahem - Thimar
Gary Burton/Steve Swallow - Hotel Hello
Gary Burton Quintet - Ring
Chick Corea/Gary Burton - Crystal Silence
Chick Corea - Return To Forever
Egberto Gismonti - Sol Do Meio Dia
Charlie Haden/Jan Garbarek - Magico
Zakir Hussain - Making Music
Keith Jarrett - My Song / Belonging
Keith Jarrett - Nude Ants
Pat Metheny Group / Offramp / First Circle
Enrico Rava - The Plot
Ralph Towner - Anthem
Ralph Towner - Diary / Solstice
Ralph Towner -  Solo Concert
Ralph Towner/Gary Burton -Matchbook
Eberhard Weber - Fluid Rustle
Kenny Wheeler - Gnu High

One of my all-time favourite atmospheric jazz records is the Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays album 'As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls'. It is a wonderfully sequenced LP that evokes various moods, largely uplifting. But it can also be contemplative, if listened to away from your desk.

Acoustic guitar music

There's a lot of really good acoustic guitar music around, but I'm definitely old school. I tend to listen to the folk players from the past, such as Davy Graham, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, John Fahey, Stefan Grossman and Leo Kottke, with more modern exceptions like James Elkington and kiwi (via Long Island) guitar genius Nigel Gavin.

Recommended while you work:
Bruce Cockburn - Circles In The Stream
James Elkington - Wintres Woma
John Fahey - Of Rivers & Religion
Nigel Gavin - Visitation
Gitbox Rebellion - Curveball
Stefan Grossman - Guitar Instrumentals (Memphis Jellyroll)
Michael Gulezian - Unspoken Intentions
Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries
The Bert Jansch Sampler
Pat Metheny - One Quiet Night
Pentangle - Sweet Child
The John Renbourn Sampler
Alan Stivell - Reflections

Jazz

Some people take inspiration or motivation from their chosen background music. The Japanese author Huraki Murakami says he almost always works listening to music. Murakami used to own a jazz bar in Tokyo and has at least 10,000 vinyl records. He has a nice work life situation too, as you can see below.

Murakami's study room

Here's a list of jazz recordings I'll play while I work:
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else
Ron Carter - All Blues
John Coltrane- Blue Train
Chick Corea - Piano Improvisations Vol 2
Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Miles Davis - My Funny Valentine
Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
Miles Davis - Jack Johnson
Kevin Eubanks - Spirit Talk 1 & 2
Bill Evans Trio - Portrait in Jazz
Stan Getz - Reflections
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage / Empyrean Isles
Charles Mingus - Tijuana Moods
Modern Jazz Quartet - Blues at Carnegie Hall
Wes Montgomery - So Much Guitar
Steps Ahead

Ambience

For music to take me off into another realm, I keep coming back to one consistent source of ambient quality - the San Francisco radio station Hearts of Space. Their soundscapes are designed mainly for those seeking transcendence - and stoners - but they are also suitable for the home worker seeking music to put them in the zone. Highly recommended. Here's a link that shows their various ambient music sub-genres: https://v4.hos.com/channels 

The Hearts Of Space website - slow music for fast times

Their slogan is Slow Music For Fast Times. The shows are all themed and typically last around 40 minutes to an hour. There are free programs once a week and a subscription streaming service. 

The quality of the music, to these ears, is always high.

This was the very first Hearts of Space show that I heard back in 1990s - Drifter, which gives you a good idea of what to expect:
https://v4.hos.com/programs/details/445

Alternatively, for a more varied ambient menu, you could try Flow State, a service that sends out two hours of ambient work-friendly music every weekday. Artists they’ve highlighted include Johann Johannsson, Khruangbin, David Borden, Steve Reich, and Ludovico Einaudi.

I hope you get some enjoyment from these lists. 
Keep calm and stay safe, wherever you are. Enjoy the music.

Queen’s famous 1976 free concert in Hyde Park

London's Hyde Park - 18th September 1976 – it's the sixth anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's death and I am attending a free concert by Queen, who had recently hit the big-time with their classic single Bohemian Rhapsody and the album ‘A Night At The Opera’.

This was Queen in their flamboyant pomp, with Freddie Mercury prancing round the stage in a white leotard, calling everyone darling.

The fact that it was a free concert brought this corner of the West End of London to a standstill for the day. I well remember the crowds at Marble Arch and all along Park Lane. Despite the crowds, there was not much trouble, save for a brief fight down at the front during the show that got Steve Hillage very angry, for a hippie.

Queen wanted to cement their fanbase after the success of Bohemian Rhapsody, so they hit upon the idea of a free concert. The Rolling Stones had done one in 1969 and there were a few others, notably Blind Faith's first show in the UK that same year. 

Queen playing '39 at Hyde Park

In 1976 Richard Branson was developing the Virgin Records roster. He saw this as a good opportunity to promote the brand so Virgin agreed to help organise the concert and into the bargain Branson got to feature some of his acts, namely Steve Hillage and Supercharge.

Kiki Dee was also on the bill, fresh from her number one hit duet with Elton John. Elton wasn't available though, so at Hyde Park Kiki duetted with a life-sized cardboard cut-out.

A review of the show

Albie Donnelly, the lead singer of Supercharge - a big fella with a beard - got one of the biggest cheers of the day when he bounced on stage wearing - you guessed it - a white leotard.

I’d seen Steve Hillage live as part of Gong at Hammersmith Palais the previous year, playing their Flying Teapot music. I had both of Steve’s solo albums up to that point, Fish Rising, which featured most of the classic Gong band minus Daevid Allen, and L, which featured Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. His live band at Hyde Park included ex-Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker and a bass player called, naturally, Colin Bass. They played a really good set, topped off with Hillage’s version of the Beatles’ song ‘It’s All Too Much’.

Steve Hillage at Hyde Park

There was a darkly comic moment during his set, when a fight broke out down at the front. We were sat close enough to the stage to have a decent view but without getting involved in the melee closer to the stage, where people were jostling for position.

Anyway, a fight broke out and Hillage actually stopped playing to remonstrate with the offenders: “Stop fucking fighting! I don't care if we don't play another note.” I was rather shocked to hear this long-haired hippie get so irate. 

The bad vibes at the front didn’t spoil the party for everyone else, but it was clearly still a bit volatile down there as Queen took the stage. Well into their set, with cans being thrown, (presumably not at the band!) Freddie was told by the Police to instruct the audience to stop throwing stuff.

The view from Roger Taylor's drumkit

They had come on stage at dusk in their white androgynous costumes and lacey sleeves, smoke bombs and dry ice going off. After the customary guitar fanfare, they opened with 'Ogre Battle' from Queen II. The music was loud and leaned on the progressive/fantasy stylings of the time.

In 1976, Queen’s set was a mixed bag of heavy rock, acoustic ballads, mini-opera and music hall pastiche. People who only know Queen for ‘We Will Rock You’ wouldn’t recognise this early version of the band. How different it all was.

Visually more engaging than anything else that day, there was a sense that this was a really big event for the band, getting this level of support from a British audience.

Brian May has said that Hyde Park was one of the most significant gigs of their career. “There was a great affection because we'd kind of made it in a lot of countries by that time, but England was still, you know, we weren't really sure if we were acceptable here. So it was a wonderful feeling to come back and see the huge crowd and get that response.”

Punk rock would soon put paid to all that.

Like many of the bands who came of age in the early to mid 1970s, Queen's image changed radically in the post-punk era. Ten years later, post Live Aid, Queen's career gained a second wind and they became belatedly - if not hip - then at least more credible than they were in the mid-70s. 

No, it wasn’t hip to like Queen back then. For the record, though, this is the only time in their career when I actually bought their albums – Queen II being a particular favourite. 

There is video footage of the Hyde Park concert. I bought a pirated DVD of it in Japan several years ago. The quality is poor and it transpires that the master recording has deteriorated to the extent that an official release is now highly unlikely. My DVD includes some silent footage of the band backstage and a clip of Steve Hillage’s set.

This is the best footage available of Queen's show, that marries the original video with a separate audio source.

Despite the poor visuals, the audio track is still largely intact, and as a snapshot of the time, it’s fascinating to revisit for anyone who was there. 

The concert ended abruptly owing to a strict curfew. Queen were prevented from playing their usual rock 'n' roll medley as a second encore. The show had over-run its allotted time and the police were adamant that the show must NOT go on. 

The police went so far as to threaten the band that if they went on again, they would be arrested. I imagine Freddie didn't fancy being locked up in a leotard. 

The stage was dark for ages before any announcement was made to the crowd. Finally, DJ Bob Harris had the thankless task of announcing to the crowd that Queen would not be coming on again. The main power was cut and plunged 150,000 people into darkness. Not a great way to end the day.

Queen’s Hyde Park Set List: Overture / Ogre Battle / Sweet Lady / White Queen / Flick of the Wrist / Medley: You’re My Best Friend, Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, March of the Black Queen / Bring Back That Leroy Brown / Brighton Rock / Son & Daughter / ’39 / You Take My Breath Away / The Prophet’s Song / Stone-cold Crazy / Keep Yourself Alive / Liar / In The Lap of the Gods.

A week later this advert appeared in the UK music papers

Also on this blog:

Five days of high drama at the Isle of Wight, 1970

Memories of the Reading Festival 1975

A Tribute to David Sanborn

Sanborn with David Bowie in 1975

Here was an artist who had been a feature of my life since I first heard him on record in the early 1970s. On his passing this week, I felt a tinge of regret that I might have taken him for granted of late. Time for a reappraisal of his career.

On Sunday nights as mid-teenagers a bunch of us would gather at a girlfriend's house in Pinner. We'd sit in her bedroom and listen to records. Actually only two records, but they were both excellent - Steely Dan's Katy Lied and David Bowie's Young Americans. 

The title track of the Bowie album had that instantly familiar intro sax line and solo by David Sanborn that everyone recognises, whether they know his name or not.  

Sanborn at Woodstock

Sanborn's first major exposure (to a mere 400,000 people) had come, aged 24, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He appeared at the 1969 Woodstock festival with the Butterfield band, though not in the movie. 

Then in 1972, he got his first big exposure on record, featuring on Stevie Wonder's classic album Talking Book, on the gorgeous track Tuesday Heartbreak. 

It was a sound that became Sanborn's calling card, a signature style that would make him a first-call session player from then on. 

When Bowie decided to record in the US in 1975, it was an inspired move to have Sanborn provide the saxophone riff that would usher in his new sound. 

Young Americans was a bold change of style for Bowie, one that some found difficult to take. From Glam rocker to Soul crooner? Come off it mate! But our little gang loved the new album. Sanborn's sax was integral to the whole vibe, especially on tracks like Win and Fascination.

His solo career took off in the late 1970s and early 80s, with albums such as Hideaway, Voyeur and Change Of Heart. His collaboration with Bob James, Double Vision won them both a Grammy. In all, Sanborn won six.

He kept the best company in his choice of backing musicians and collaborators, not the least of whom was bassist Marcus Miller, who was just 19 when they first worked together. Tracks like Chicago Song and Run For Cover demonstrate how important Miller was to Sanborn's sound in that classic 1980s period. 

Sanborn capitalised on his popularity as one of New York's finest, leading the house band on Saturday Night Live and featuring on David Letterman's late-night chat shows. There are some legendary performances from those days on Youtube. 

Here's the cream of New York's session players, including Marcus, guitarist Hiram Bullock and drummer Omar Hakim playing the Weather Report track Teen Town. 

He also co-hosted Night Music, a late-night music show on television with Jools Holland, and curated a syndicated radio program, The Jazz Show with David Sanborn.

I first saw him live in London in the 1980s, as the support act for Al Jarreau. Sanborn's band included drummer Steve Gadd, so my mate Graham and I - both mad keen drummers - went along two nights running to check him out. 

Here's one of my favourite clips of Sanborn, Mike Mainieri, Robben Ford et al at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981.

Here's Run For Cover with George Duke and Marcus Miller

And from Night music, here's the band backing Miles Davis on Tutu, introduced by Dave Sanborn.  

Of his more recent recordings, I picked up the album Time Again on a business trip in Singapore in about 2005. And I'm still playing it. Again, just the best musicians; Steve Gadd, Mike Mainieri, Randy Brecker, Christian McBride, playing a mix of old and new. Here's a live version of the first track on Time Again, Comin' Home Baby. 

Also on this blog:

Miles Davis and the track name mix-up on Kind Of Blue

 A tribute to jazz giant Chick Corea

Pat Metheny, Live in 2020 and Way Back

Jazz, Blues, Folk - Musical adventures in New York

Sandy Denny and Fotheringay - A Beguiling Songbook

In his book Electric Eden, Rob Young says the 1970 album Fotheringay can be seen as “effectively the first proper Sandy Denny record, heaving and tossing with briny swells.”

I kind of agree with him, since the very reason Sandy had left Fairport Convention in 1969, soon after the release of their landmark album Liege & Lief, was a desire to record her own songs.  

Of course, Fotheringay was a group, but Sandy’s songs formed the core of their repertoire and it was her money that funded their short life, before she buckled under pressure to go out on her own.  

Original 1970 pink label version

Recorded at Sound Techniques, produced by Joe Boyd and engineered by Jerry Boys, the Fotheringay album was released in the spring of 1970. The band toured the UK and the album sold reasonably well, but not enough to put the band up in the same league as Fairport. 

Despite the excellent musicianship displayed by bassist Pat Donaldson, drummer Gerry Conway and lead guitarist Jerry Donahue, they weren’t revered in the same way as Ashley, Richard, Swarb, Simon and DM were in Fairport. In particular, Sandy’s boyfriend, Trevor Lucas was seen as a bit of a chancer, riding on her coat-tails.

Young said Lucas had made a modest reputation for himself as an Australian folkie: “Contemporaries remember him as competent but with little musical talent; a good-time guy who latched onto his partner’s talents.”

Fairport and Fotheringay (Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band et al) shared a management company, Joe Boyd's Witchseason. Boyd and Island Records boss Chris Blackwell were adamant that Sandy should reap the rewards being offered her as a solo artist. Their antipathy towards Fotheringay proved to be the band’s undoing. 

Later, in 1973, Sandy told Rolling Stone, "They hated us at the Witchseason office. They kept saying, look, you're not Fairport and you're not The Incredibles."

On a purely musical level, these attitudes seem unfair, because the Fotheringay album hangs together very well. It contains some of Sandy's best songs, some highly credible covers and some terrific ensemble playing. As Young wrote: “Fotheringay’s mix of slow rocking English and Scottish ballads and windswept Denny originals made for a beguiling songbook.”

“Songs like The Sea, The Pond and the Stream and Winter Winds (all from Fotheringay) are beset by gusts of wind stirring up the summer’s dust, rumbling clouds and approaching squalls. The season is typically autumn or early winter."

Fotheringay live

Complementing and contrasting those songs on the album are covers of Gordon Lightfoot’s The Way I Feel and Bob Dylan’s Too Much Of Nothing, the latter of which could be said to be the definitive version of the song. Trevor Lucas does a fine job on the vocal, backed up by Sandy and Pat live, while Jerry's soloing is, as always, impeccable. 

The final track on the album, Banks of the Nile is one of Sandy's best traditional arrangements, topped off with her divine angelic singing.  

Fotheringay toured the UK, often supporting Fairport Convention. Sandy continued winning best female vocalist polls and pressure on her to go solo was incessant, ultimately breaking the band apart before they could complete a second album.

In his biography 'White Bicycles', Boyd said, “From the moment she left Fairport, Sandy and I did nothing but argue. I could get a big advance from A&M for a solo album, but she wanted to form a band with her boyfriend." Lucas was a spendthrift, but as Boyd pointed out, "the money keeping everyone on salary was Sandy’s."

At Trevor’s behest they bought a massive PA system (nickname: Stonehenge) and a Bentley to get around in. Richard Thompson recalls, “Each custom-made cabinet was the size of a sarsen stone, weighed a ton and took about six people to lift. There would be two cabinets on each side of the stage and one laid across the top, hence the name."

Sandy was bankrolling all this, to Joe Boyd’s increasing frustration: “One night in December working on the second Fotheringay album, I lost my temper after the fortieth unsuccessful take of John The Gun. Sandy and I went out and got drunk. She asked me if I would stay if she broke up the group and made a solo album.”

Sandy and Jerry Donahue

Thus were sown the seeds of Sandy and Joe’s estrangement. He had been offered a job running Warner Brothers' film music department in Los Angeles. From their drunken chat, Sandy thought Joe had committed to staying in London. She told the band it was over. 

In a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone, Boyd admitted he said if Sandy would break up the group he would think about staying on in London to produce her. “The next day I told her I couldn’t, that I had to go to LA”. He had already signed the Warners contract and couldn’t get out of it. “She never forgave me,” he said in White Bicycles.

“Fotheringay was a fabulous band,” Sandy told Rolling Stone. That its demise was unnecessary and borne of a misunderstanding made it all the more frustrating for Sandy and the others. It wasn’t the end of their working relationship though. In his biography, ‘Beeswing’, Richard Thompson said that for her first solo record Sandy wanted to have musicians she was comfortable with, which included Pat and Gerry from Fotheringay.

Pat and Gerry

“Even though Fotheringay didn’t exist, half of it was still on board! It was a strange situation, but there didn’t seem to be any animosity. I think everyone knew that Sandy had been destined for a solo career sooner or later.”

If there could be any criticism of the solo material, it was that unlike the Fotheringay record, Sandy’s records were a bit one-paced. As Thompson noted, her compositions were full of her own unique character, and with that wonderful voice of hers she could carry any tune. But Richard and Trevor both recognised the need for some variety in tempo. However, their attempts to get her to write some rockier material largely failed.

While the members of Fotheringay all ended up working together subsequently, mainly under the Fairport umbrella, there was always a feeling of unfinished business. It wasn’t until 2008, long after Sandy and Trevor had passed, that Jerry Donahue curated the release of Fotheringay 2, derived mainly from those original 1971 sessions. It's a vibrant and worthy, if hugely-belated follow-up. 

Some of the material from the original aborted second album, including John The Gun and Late November, ended up on Sandy’s first real solo album in 1971, The Northstar Grassman and The Ravens. The Fotheringay material was augmented by new sessions helmed by Richard Thompson, but with Fotheringay members contributing. 

“Here at last was Sandy composing at the piano,” said Thompson, who admits he hadn’t realised before this how good Sandy was at the piano, because Fairport didn’t think to make one available to her. Here she is, playing Late November from Northstar Grassman.

“She had a beautiful touch and her voicings and harmonic sense were unique. Although you can hear her roots in traditional music, these are songs of their time…with a quality that endures.”

Fotheringay on Beat Club, playing Dylan's Too Much Of Nothing, 1970

BBC Session 1971, Gypsie Davy 

John The Gun, from Fotheringay 2, recorded 1971

Sandy Denny - Crazy Lady Blues, 1971

Sandy Denny - The Northstar Grassman and The Ravens

Also on this blog:
A Visit To The Nick Drake Gathering

What Is Led Zeppelin's Best Acoustic Song?

Duncan Browne's Journey

Music While You Work - A Guide

Joni Mitchell- The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Who's next - lightning in a bottle

Photo by Ethan Russell

In their heyday The Who were a truly exciting live band; there can be little argument about that. But it wasn't until the release of their 1971 album 'Who's next', that they managed to capture the explosive nature of their live shows on a studio album. 

From their earliest shows, The Who created mild outrage with their stage antics, especially the smashing of guitars and drums at the climax of their set. 

Their December 1968 stint on 'The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus' showed that even without the pyrotechnics they were a match for anyone playing live. That confident, cheeky performance of  'A Quick One, While He's Away' was perfectly pitched for the circus tent, and so much more polished and powerful than the Stones' lacklustre act. 

Indeed, it was this upstaging of the Stones, as much as the sorry state of Brian Jones, that convinced Jagger & Co to shelve the Rock and Roll Circus film. It didn't see a full official release for almost 30 years.

From the late '60s on, with the 'Tommy' album as the core of their act, The Who built a reputation as a heavy rock band, culminating in their triumphant early morning stint at Woodstock in August 1969. 

The 1970 'Live At Leeds' album was an all-guns-blazing set, with Pete Townshend and Keith Moon driving each other to new extremes. Check out this clip of them playing the original vinyl album's opener 'Young Man Blues' at the Isle of Wight festival that same year.

As the Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau wrote in 1971, The Who's studio recordings thus far were marred by a thin sound. Their 1971 masterpiece 'Who’s next' changed all that. With the help of master engineer Glyn Johns, they managed to transfer the power and majesty of a Who live show onto a studio record for the first time. Christgau said the group "now achieves the same resonant immediacy in the studio that it does live".

The Who in 1971 around the time of Who's next

It was a volatile chemistry that made them such an exciting and often unpredictable live act. John Entwistle played lead lines on the bass, allowing Townshend the freedom to jump around, imitate a windmill and bang out his wild riffs.

Moon was the whirlwind, totally unconventional as a drummer, but at his best, as on 'Who's next', he brought exceptional musicality to the drums. 

By '71 and tired of playing 'Tommy' and their 60s hits to the same audiences, Townshend conceived a new album concept as their next big project. He built himself a studio and began creating a new musical landscape.

In the new Apple TV series 1971, Townshend says, “I’d heard about synthesisers and music computers and I could see this new revolution coming.

"Lifehouse was going to be a movie based on a dystopian idea about the way media, electronics and technology would change society. I imagined this world in which there was incredible pollution, incredible difficulty with living in the outside world and so what the government did is it stuck us in our houses and fed us entertainment to keep us happy while they cleaned up the air.

NME review, click to enlarge

“I called it The Grid, this global communication system where everybody would be fed similar stuff. It would be surreptitiously policed and censored. Once they’d got us in and they were feeding us the programmes, we would imagine we had access to everything, because of its richness, its persuasiveness and its beauty. It was an anticipation of the idea that everything would go wrong, but that music would prevail."

Unfortunately, Pete couldn’t sell this concept to the band. They thought he'd gone mad. But producer Glyn Johns was sufficiently interested in the musical ideas to help Pete condense them into conventional backing tracks that The Who could then play along to. 

Rolling Stone magazine’s 1971 review noted that “Townshend wrings more than his money’s worth out of his £14,000-worth of synthesizers, making, I daresay, shrewder at once more adventurous and better-integrated — use of them than any rock experimenter before him."

In 'Baba O’Riley', for instance, he sets the stage for the band’s dramatic entrance with a pre-recorded VCS3 part he obtained by programming certain of his vital statistics into a computer hooked up to the synthesizer, then treats the part as a drone while the song’s two major chords are transposed over it.

All in the best possible taste

The looped and synthesised intro to 'Baba O’Riley' and the trippy electronics of  'Won’t Get Fooled Again' were inspired by minimalist composer Terry Riley’s 1967 album 'A Rainbow in Curved Air'. 

Rolling Stone noted the quality of the musicianship on this album, “with Moon thrashing and bashing more precisely than ever before on record, Entwistle dreaming up all manner of scrumptious melodic and rhythmic flourishes (listen especially to what he plays beneath the chorus of 'Won’t Get Fooled Again').

"And Townshend, with chunky acoustic rhythm, resounding monster chords of the classic sort, and cogent and lyrical solos, playing with exemplary efficiency and taste.” Singer Roger Daltrey also rose to the occasion with some of his most assured vocals, including the legendary scream at the climax of Won't Get Fooled Again. 

Re-reviewing 'Who’s next' in the mid 1970s, the NME’s Steve Clarke noted that Keith Moon’s unique style of playing – often without a hi-hat, hence the wash of cymbal sounds on many recordings – meant he lacked “the bombastic precision of many of Britain’s rock drummers. Instead. Moon sounds spontaneously manic, and nowhere has he sounded better than here.”

back cover photo

While the dramatic opening and closing tracks of 'Who's next' are the ones most people remember, there’s a satisfying variety in the moods in the remaining songs, with particularly melodic passages in 'Love Ain’t For Keeping', 'Song Is Over' and the utterly brilliant 'Behind Blue Eyes'. The acoustic-to-electric transition on the latter exemplifies the tension and release dynamics of The Who at their best – and with lyrics to match.

“When my fist clenches crack it open, before use it and lose my cool. If I smile, tell me some bad news, before I laugh and act like a fool.”

RS described ‘Song Is Over’ as “an unutterably beautiful song in which Townshend sings exquisitely over a gentle piano background with Daltrey charging in exhilaratingly, with breathtaking chord changes in the manner of the “Listening to you I hear the music . . .” refrain from Tommy.”

Pete may have failed to get the broader Lifehouse project off the ground, but 'Who's next' nonetheless carries a strong sense of what Clarke observed as “We’re all part of something bigger and somehow one day we’ll all join together as one.” 

Photo by Ethan Russell

The cover shot of the monolith in a Sheffield slag heap is odd but effective, although as Townshend pointed out, it bears no relation to the narrative of the record. Indeed, photographer Ethan Russell said he thought after they had done it there was no chance it would be used.

Quite how it was selected then is a mystery. Townsend added, "Of course I don’t like it. It’s got no artistic consequence whatsoever. No link to the music. It’s meaningless. It’s four guys stopping in a car and pissing up against a chunk of concrete. Anyway, can we move on?"

Also On This Blog:

Five Days of Drama at The Isle of Wight, 1970

The Who 'Put The Boot In' at Charlton FC, 1976

Sunday Night at The Saville, 1967