Way back in the early 70s, a friend of mine gave me an album called Crisis, What Crisis? by a band called Supertramp. For some reason I had been expecting an album by a black soul band. What I heard was an album of a slightly prog, rock band with an ear for a good tune. The main song that grabbed my ear was called Sister Moonshine, with it's bright 12 string guitar and glorious harmonies.
The album was a kind of odd affair with two singers singing their own songs. One earthy and direct. The other ethereal and introspective. A template which was to be followed on the majority of subsequent Supertramp albums.
However, I had missed the previous album. This turned out to be my all time favourite Supertamp album called Crime Of The Century.
Crime did produce two singles, one being
Supertramp was home to two excellent songwriters - the earthy Rick Davies and the ethereal Roger Hodgson. And with each songwriter taking lead vocals on his own song, it became clear that it was a perfect balance for the band.
Crime of the century was released in 1974 and started a golden period for the band which would last until Roger's departure in 1983 to spend more time with his family.
The other single released was the instantly recognisable Dreamer
Roger's songs seemed to be the ones the public appreciated more as singles and most of the band's future hits came from the pen of Roger such as Give A Little Bit from the next album Even In The Quietest Moments
Although Roger did not only write singles, as the album's magnum opus, Fool's Overture shows - all 11 minutes of it.
But the next album had hits for both Roger & Rick and went on to become the best selling album in the USA in 1979. And won two Grammys. Which goes to show, if you want a hit album in the USA, put America in the title. It is also the best selling English language album of all time in France. Some feat. It was called Breakfast In America.
I've always preferred Roger's more spiritual songs and he's produced some beauties whilst in Supertramp.
Roger stayed for one last album, Famous Last Words and gave the band one more hit.
Supertramp, led by Rick and with future Crowded House Guitarist/keyboard player Mark Hart, carried on and had another hit singles and albums.
After Supertramp, Roger left the music business for a while but came back with a solo album, In The Eye Of The Storm, in 1984 and when I first put the needle on the record gave me one of those rare 'tingle down the spine' moments in music where at 1 minute 25 seconds the pounding piano kicks in and I jumped shouting, 'yes, he's back and he's still got it'.
Supertramp as a recording and touring entity are now on hiatus but Roger still performs his solo material and his Supertramp songs at sold out gigs all over the world.
1963. A group of guys got together and called themselves Levon & The Hawks. Catchy, huh? Those guys turned out to be Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson. They were hired by a quite famous folk singer to join him on his US tour in 1965 & a World tour in 1966, when he decided he'd like to try an electric approach to his music. The folk singer was the one and only Bob Dylan. After working with Dylan they renamed themselves, The Band.
They were an unusual group in the sense that they were ALL songwriters and almost all multi-instrumentalists.
Their first Two albums, Music From Big pink & The Band went on to become two of the most influential albums in Rock history.
Robbie Robertson was their guitar player. He stayed with The Band from their inception right through to 1976. Robbie had grown tired of touring and it was then that The Band ended their touring career. The final performance was captured on film by the director Martin Scorsese and released as The Last Waltz. It is one of the finest concert films ever produced. During the show, The Band were joined on stage by various luminaries of the music business including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Van Morrison & more.
Robbie had been responsible for writing some of the Band's best known songs.
The Band reformed to tour in 1983 without Robbie and kept on touring. And they even produced three more albums in the 1990s. Without Robbie.
After leaving The Band, Robbie's first projects were to produce the two Neil Diamond albums, Beautiful Noise in 1976 and his live album Love At The Greek in 1977.
Robbie then went on to work again with Scorsese on various film projects.
I remember the anticipation in the mid 1980s when word got out that Robbie was working on his first solo album. What nobody expected is that he would choose the Producer of the moment, Daniel Lanois to work on it with him. But Robbie had worked previously with Lanois so really it should not have come as a surprise. Lanois was already producing the Peter Gabriel album So and was also working on the U2 album, The Joshua Tree while recording Robbie's self titled debut solo album. This gave an indication as what to expect sound wise.
I'll never forget that rumble and droned guitars of the opening track Fallen Angel. The song is about his former Band mate Richard Manuel. It had such a scope and dynamism but was somehow gentle and poetic. Such a beautiful and dramatic opening song. Robbie's voice sounded as clear and crisp and strained as ever with absolutely gorgeous backing vocals from Peter Gabriel. The sound for the whole album is right there on that one track. And it doesn't half give your Hi Fi a good old test.
It is such an album of depth and emotion it needed a brilliant producer to harness the magic and bring the best out of this collection of songs. Many of which explored aspects of Robbie's Native American background.
And if you're working with the hottest producer of the moment, you can even get a great backing band on a song. How about U2?
The album did include one world wide smash hit single which seemed to be everywhere when it was released and on constant rotation on MTV.
The album won the Juno for Album Of The Year award of 1988
Robbie & Daniel Lanois' production skills on this album were rewarded with the Juno award for Producer Of The Year.
Robbie has hardly been prolific and has only recorded 5 solo albums to date but every one is worthy and he remains one of the best musicians on the planet.
So do yourself a favour - go and get this album and PLAY IT LOUD.
I must admit that my love of music has always stemmed from harmonies more than anything else. Brought up on a diet of Beach Boys, Beatles & The Association, my early (ears) were exposed to what beauty of the human voices could achieve.
When I started to form my own musical tastes, I quickly moved into the early American singer songwriters such as James Taylor, Jackson Browne etc and British Prog rock such as YES - who had brilliant three part harmonies courtesy of Jon Anderson (high), Chris Squire (even higher) & Steve Howe (low).
Follow this with bands such as The Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Poco, etc through the seventies.
Punk & New Wave for me had no harmony. It was all about energy and taking the piss out of prog rock and the music I loved. Only the Clash and later The Jam had any relevance for me at the time. Mainly because they were more 'musical' and could actually play their instruments.
Along with Prog came the offshoot Kraut Rock. Krautrock as the name implies, was a collection of bands that based their sounds around electronic keyboards and came from Germany.
Some excellent sounds and music came out of these bands and they had a huge influence on the electronic movement that happened in Britain at the end of the 70s and into the 80s. I remember the very first Gary Numan appearance on Top Of The Pops in 1979 and thinking that this would influence a lot of new bands.
Which it did.
One of these bands was Ultravox.
Ultravox were formed from the ashes of a group called Tiger Lilly back in 1976 when Keyboardist & Violin player Billy Currie, Guitarist Stevie Shears & Drummer Warren Cann were joined by Vocalist John Foxx & bass player Chris Cross. They produced two albums which were critically acclaimed but sold poorly.
For their third album, Systems of Romance, the band enlisted legendary German producer Conny Plank and saw their sound move more toward the electronic German sound that was so clearly an influence. But tensions within the band rose and finally came to a head when John Foxx left to go solo leaving Currie, Cann & Cross to join other bands.
In a twist of fate, they teamed up with Vocalist, Guitarist & Keyboard player Midge Ure who had previously had success with pop band Slick and Glen Matlock's Rich Kids.
With the Teutonic sound still in effect and with the pop sensibilities of Midge now in place they went on to record their debut album as the new Ultravox. The recordings became the brilliant Vienna.
The new sound and direction was evident from the first track Astradyne. It was a seven minute exploration of new sounds and Midge's soaring vocals.
Every track on Vienna is a killer cut. The first single released was a chart hit - the pulsating Sleepwalk, Passing Strangers and All Stood Still were also released as singles.
However, nothing could prepare the charts for the glorious title track, Vienna. It had a multi million pound video which was almost on every other song on MTV. With help from the video, the track shot up the charts. But as is the history of the British pop charts and the eccentricity of the great music buying public, it was kept off the top slot by Joe Dolce's Shaddup Your Face. A complete travesty. If any song deserved to get to number 1 it was Vienna. Maybe it stalled because the album was so successful and most people had the track anyway.
The album was a huge hit and from this success Ultravox went on to produce some really good albums throughout the 80s and a plethora of hit singles.
And Midge became the unrecognised initiator of Band Aid and the Live Aid concert in 1985 together with Bob Geldof. Another Travesty.
Midge Ure & Billy Currie also went on to lend their writing and production skills to other ventures proving what great songwriters they really are.
Even John Foxx went on to record some brilliant albums after the split from the band and continues to produce great music as a musician and artist.
After splitting up in the early 90s, Ultravox reformed in the late 2009 and in 2012 released a new album called Brilliant.
And Vienna has to feature in the cult BBC drama Ashes To Ashes - set in the 80s - to great effect when you finally hear it.
The younger brother by two years, Phil, together with his brother Don was half of the duo, The Everly Brothers. From the 1950s, their close harmony singing and guitar playing were constantly on the radio as hit followed hit.
Their influence probably reached further than any other of the Rock n Roll era artists as they influenced Rock, pop and country performers.
Their influence can be seen in artist such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Hollies, Simon & Garfunkel, CSNY, The Bee Gees - the list goes on.
Their influence stretched to Scandinavia too.
And today's artists still feel the Everly Brothers influence.
I have loved Bruce Springsteen ever since I saw him way back in the day on The Old Grey Whistle Test. It was somewhere around the Born To Run album. I had a friend who worked in a local record store and he used to let me take the albums home and record them, so I often had tapes before I managed to save up for the albums. I remember doing this for BTR and Darkness On The Edge Of Town. But I did buy both albums as soon as I saved the money. I had integrity back then.
So, I the bought the first 3 albums and have been a massive fan of his music ever since.
On June 4th 1984, Bruce Springsteen was to release the album that made him a MEGASTAR. Born In The USA.
Nothing really prepared the world for this album. The previous album, Nebraska, was a lo fi home recorded dark beauty of a record that would turn out to be many a muso's Bruce of choice - for the geeks ( http://brucebase.wikispaces.com/Nebraska+-+Studio+Sessions ) - but for the American public, Born In The USA shone like a beacon through the gloom on many a workingman's tough existence. It had songs of hope, nostalgia and (misplaced) patriotism. The album produced no less than 7 hit singles. It went on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide and life for Bruce would never be the same again.
Following Born In The USA and it's subsequent tours, Bruce spent the time compiling his 75-85 Live Album which was released to huge acclaim.
Now Bruce has always been prolific and continued recording sessions at his home studio. However the next album was going to be different. This was not going to be an album without the legendary E Street Band in the title. Bruce played a lot of the instruments himself on what would become his next album - and my favourite Bruce album after Born To Run - it was the brilliant Tunnel Of Love. This is not to see that the various E Street Band members did not contribute, they did. But the change in sound to a more Country style was not the same sound that Bruce had acquired with his backing band up to this point.
For a detailed fan analysis of Born To Run, please check out the link to a fellow musician's Trevor Jones' Blog. He thinks the same as I do sometimes :)
So on October 9th 1987, Bruce released Tunnel Of Love
The album, although going triple platinum, did not and probably could not match the success of Born In The USA. Tunnel was a different beast entirely, focusing more on relationships and their trials and tribulations.
There were 4 singles released from Tunnel Of Love with varying success.
I loved the sound and feel that Bruce achieved with Tunnel Of Love and his maturing voice suited the Country style presented on many of the tracks. It's something I hope he will return to in the near future.
Bruce recorded several tracks at the Tunnel Sessions which were not released on any albums - although a few were later released on the TRACKS compilations.
Although some have never even been played live, officially.
But some have
One track I wish he would release was a co-write with Southside Johnny which Johnny himself
Tunnel of Love still holds a special place in my heart and after the majestic Born To Run, still remains my number two favourite Bruce Springsteen album.
